Heading into this evening’s 7 o’clock School Board meeting when one of 15 applicants will be chosen to serve the last 20 months of Sue Robins’s term, we are familiar with four and would recommend any of three.

Mike Eskridge, Jerry Chabola and Alan Elmont are intimately familiar with the issues. Maturity, temperament and all other significant qualifications bulge out of their portfolios.

Don’t forget sentimentality,

Today’s young parents were kids when Messrs. Chabola, Elmont and Eskridge came to widest community attention and a measure of glory in the 1990s.

While Mr. Elmont, future candidate, observed from the sidelines, Mr. Eskridge was serving two terms and Mr. Chabola was hip-high in teaching and coaching, swimming in the milieu of School Board politics.

Bringing back any of the three would be akin to restoring a favored ‘90s memory – a television show, a song, a girlfriend or a boyfriend.

For each of them, it would be a fantasy come to life. Until Ms. Robins announced she was moving across the country this month, all of them thought their political days safely, and dustily, were tucked away in family albums.

The fourth familiar personality is Scott Malsin, former City Councilman.

Five years ago last autumn he engineered one of the slickest backfires in City Hall history. Congenial, talented and politically astute, he went one step too far.

Slipping out the back door of the Council, he resigned in a quiet attempt to land an insurance benefit for his family. Then he intended to return, almost unnoticed, four months later. In the election he was confident he could reclaim his old Council seat as if nothing had changed.

Voters noticed.

They said no.

He tried once more.  Voters did not change their minds.

All of the above, and 11 other contenders are compelling reasons to watch closely this evening.