2-01-2022 12:44pm

Chelsea School Board appoints a new member

Wayne Welton. photo from the University of Michigan Baseball website

A familiar name and face has been appointed to the Chelsea School District Board of Education.

Former longtime athletic director and coach Wayne Welton is filling in for the remainder of former Chelsea school board member Keri Poulter’s term, which ends in November. At a special meeting on Jan. 31, the Chelsea School District Board of Education voted to appoint Welton after hearing from a list of candidates seeking the seat.

“I am proud to be able to serve and give back to Chelsea,” Welton told the Sun Times News in follow up to the meeting. “It is a special community and the schools are at the heart of this incredible small town.”

The other candidates were Clay Eckert, Wendy Furst, Erin Hunt-Carter, Juli Mallie, Gaye Morgenthaler, John Piatt, Rob Turner, and Mark Van De Wege.

Welton grew up in Chelsea and is a 1972 graduate of Chelsea High School.

He earned his Bachelor of Science degree in health and physical education from Central Michigan University in 1977 and has his Master of Physical Education degree from Eastern Michigan University, earning that in 1984.

His professional life in Chelsea began in 1978 after his lifelong mentor and former coach and teacher, Tom Balistrere, told him he was moving back home to Pennsylvania, so Welton should look to his hometown to start his teaching career.

Another person who was an instrumental figure in his development as an athlete and then as a teacher, coach and administrator was coach Phil Bareis, who was the AD at the time of Welton’s hire in Chelsea and was his football coach when Welton was the quarterback for the team that won the 1971 state championship.

Welton would teach health sciences and physical education and was also a coach for baseball, football and basketball. In 1989, he became Chelsea’s AD until 2011, when he retired.

Among various honors, Welton was named the 1991 Michigan High School Baseball Coaches Association (MHSBCA) Coach of the Year and was an eight-time Regional Coach of the Year. He was elected to the MHSBCA Hall of Fame in 2003. He was named the Regional Athletic Director of the Year by the Michigan Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association in 2010 and earned the Bush Service Award by the Michigan High School Athletic Association in 2006.

Things didn’t end there, though.

His passion for baseball and coaching took him back in 2011 to Spring Arbor University as a volunteer coach and then a year later he joined on with the baseball coaching staff at the University of Michigan. He would go on to serve as U of M’s director of baseball operations until he retired again last year to spend more time with his family.

He said there were a lot of highlights from that time, including a state championship in baseball in 1991 with Chelsea and then going to the championship with U of M in 2019, but some of the best were the everyday moments with the student-athletes, colleagues and others. He said he made many lifelong friends.

Now he’s looking to help his hometown by serving on the school board.

Emphasizing that he has no agenda except to help the school district, he said everyone, from the students, parents, staff, employees and other community members, are all valued and by using the resources and information at hand he hopes to work with the other school board members to help continue the Chelsea tradition of having a great school district.