BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) - The longtime chairman of the North Dakota Senate's Education Committee says he will not run for re-election next year.

Republican Layton Freborg will have served 36 years in the Legislature when he steps down in December 2012. He was in the North Dakota House for eight years before he was elected to the
Senate in 1984.

The 78-year-old Freborg has been chairman of the Senate Education Committee since 1995. He represents District 8, which includes eastern McLean County and part of rural Burleigh County in
west-central North Dakota.

Freborg served as chairman of the state Republican Party from 1985 to 1991.

He is a retired building contractor. Freborg once owned lumber businesses in Turtle Lake and Underwood.