SALEM – Lillian “Lil” Knapp was honored Monday by the state Senate and House of Representatives for her years of service to SAD 58.

Knapp, 75, was given a certificate of recognition by Rep. Tom Saviello, I-Wilton, on Monday during an assembly on the faculty and staff’s first day back at school.

Knapp is the district’s oldest employee, and her granddaughter Amanda Knapp Wilkins, a first-year teacher in Strong, is the youngest teacher in the district. Several of her family members work within the district.

Starting as a teacher’s aide for Principal Ellwood Allen before Phillips was part of the district, Knapp has been with SAD 58 for 40 years, Saviello said. In 1968, she went to work as an assistant in the Phillips Elementary School cafeteria, moving to the junior high as a teacher’s aide in 1976. She became secretary of the Phillips Primary School in 1986 and has worked at the Phillips Elementary School library since 2002.