Carbon County Magisterial District Judge Casimir T. Kosciolek has announced he will not be seeking re-election to the bench in District Court 56-3-03, a position he has held since 1999.

He will retire when his fourth six-year term ends in December 2023.

The district includes the boroughs of Lansford, Nesquehoning and Summit Hill, East Penn Township and the Mahoning and New Mahoning districts of Mahoning Township.

Kosciolek is the longest serving magisterial district judge in that district, having served over four terms in the Carbon County Court of Common Pleas’ minor judiciary.

The Lake Hauto resident succeeded Irene Hudasky of Lansford as the “district justice,” a title that the state has since changed to “magisterial district judge.”

Hudasky retired in December 1998.

Kosciolek won the Democratic and Republican nominations in the primary election of May 1999, outdistancing 11 opponents who sought the position. In October of that year, the Pennsylvania Senate, acting on a motion by the late Sen. James Rhoades, who at that time presided over the 29th Senatorial District that includes Carbon County, confirmed Governor Tom Ridge’s nomination of Kosciolek to fill the remainder of Hudasky’s term of office, essentially starting his tenure.

Kosciolek then won the November 1999 General Election as the nominee on both major parties, and began his first six-year term in January 2000.

He went on to win re-election to six-year terms in 2005, 2011 and 2017.

Kosciolek graduated from Marian Catholic High School, Bloomsburg University and Massanutten Military Academy in Woodstock, Virginia, with a degree in criminal justice/sociology.

After college, he worked as a professional umpire; was the work release and treatment director at the Carbon County Correctional Facility, being actively involved in the transition from the prison on Broadway in Jim Thorpe to the current facility in Nesquehoning, and was employed as a Therapeutic Staff Support worker for the Carbon-Lehigh Intermediate Unit 21 before being elected to office.