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TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Governor Ron DeSantis on Thursday appointed Rita Pritchett to the Brevard County Board of County Commissioners, returning a familiar face to the dais she left just two years ago after being termed out of the same District 1 seat.

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The governor’s office described Pritchett as a professor at Eastern Florida State College and an administrator at New Life Space Coast Church and Academy. Her resume is longer than that summary suggests. Pritchett spent two terms on the Titusville City Council before winning the District 1 county commission seat in 2016, then won reelection in 2020 and served until 2024, when Florida’s eight-year term limit forced her out. She holds a bachelor’s degree in business and a master’s in accountancy from the University of Central Florida and is a licensed CPA who has spent nearly two decades teaching accounting at Eastern Florida State College.

Rather than step away from public office entirely in 2024, Pritchett challenged incumbent Lisa Cullen in the Republican primary for Brevard County Tax Collector. Cullen won, and Pritchett returned to teaching and her work at New Life Space Coast Church and Academy — until Thursday’s appointment put her back on the commission.

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Why the seat is open

The vacancy Pritchett is filling belongs to Katie Delaney, who announced in April that she would resign effective May 2, 2026, after her family accepted what she called a “life-changing” opportunity that required leaving Florida. Delaney, a Republican first elected to the District 1 seat in 2024, built her brief tenure around firefighter pay raises and pushes for greater accountability in county government, and had been active with Moms for Liberty then left and transitioned to Moms for America before her election, campaigning against COVID-era school quarantine policies and instructional materials she considered ideologically driven. In announcing her departure, Delaney said her time in office had “shifted the culture” of county government despite its being cut short.

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Because Delaney’s exit was unexpected, state law doesn’t leave the seat empty until the next regularly scheduled election. Instead, the governor appoints a placeholder to serve while voters choose someone to finish out the remainder of the term. That contest is already taking shape: four candidates business owner Nathan Slusher, Port Authority commissioner Micah Loyd, Stel Bailey and commission-meeting regular Rick Heffelfinger are running in an August 18 primary ahead of the November general election. Pritchett is not among them. Whoever wins will serve a shortened two-year term rather than the standard four, since the race is filling out what remained of Delaney’s original term rather than starting a new one.

That leaves Pritchett in the role of caretaker commissioner, holding down District 1 through the election cycle before handing the seat to whoever voters choose in November. It’s a familiar district for her, if a slightly awkward homecoming: less than two years after term limits pushed her out of the job, an unrelated resignation and a gubernatorial appointment have put her right back behind the same dais.

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