The new director of the Wiliam J. Hughes Center for Public Policy at Stockton University is the great-granddaughter of the last Republican mayor of Boston.
Tina Zappile was announced today as the new director. She will replace John Froonjian, a former reporter who retired earlier this year.
Her great-grandfather was Malcolm Nichols, a former statehouse newspaper reporter, served as a Boston city councilman in 1905, as a Massachusetts state representative from 1907 to 1909, and as a state senator in 1914, and from 1917 to 1919.
Nichols was elected mayor in 1925, winning 35.4% in a five-candidate, non-partisan race to replace term-limited Mayor James Michael Curley; in those days, mayors could not serve a second four-year term. Curley sought a return and won in 1929, and Nicholas mounted a comeback bid in 1933; he lost to former State Treasurer Frederick Mansfield by 1,714 votes, 28.3% to 27.6%, in a four-candidate race.
When Nicholas ran again in 1937, he finished third with 20.3%; the winner was Maurice Tobin, who beat Curley, then the former governor, 37.6% to 29.5%. He finished fourth in 1941 with 2.4%; Tobin beat Curley in that election by over 9,00
Zappile’s great-grandfather would have served in the legislature at the same time Gov. Phil Murphy’s grandfather, John W. Murphy, was an alderman in Newton, Massachusetts.
“I kind of came to this job naturally in some ways,” she said.
Zappile is an associate political science professor at Stockton. She’s been there since 2012.