Old board members never die, they just don't run for re-election. We heard a few weeks back that Apple board member Ed Woolard would be stepping down this spring, and it came as a mild shock; Woolard's the last of the "Old Guard," the only one left on the board whose membership (barely) predates the Great Steve Return of 1997. So while we weren't exactly skeptical of the news at the time, we figured we'd wait for the official word before trying to determine just what it meant. Well, the official word has come; according to ZDNet News, Apple's latest proxy statement confirms that Woolard will be leaving the board after the shareholders' meeting next month.

Reportedly the board has no plans to fill Woolard's vacant seat. With Woolard gone, that'll leave just six members on Apple's board: Jobs himself, his sidekick Larry Ellison, Bill Campbell of Intuit, Gareth Chang of STAR TV, Jerry York of Micro Warehouse, and Mickey Drexler of the Gap. Every single one of those members was appointed during the Second Jobs Dynasty, which means that the last phase of the takeover is now complete. We wouldn't go so far as to call the board a puppet regime, but the remaining members do remind us a bit of a Jobs cheerleading squad. "Give us an 'S'!"

Now, there are lots of ways to interpret Woolard's departure. We've heard rumors that Woolard wasn't happy with the compensation given to Apple directors, so maybe he left out of frustration after not being able to sway the rest of the board away from Steve's vision, but that's pure, grade-A 100% speculation. Even juicier would be the possibility of some serious bad blood between him and Jobs, but that hardly seems likely; according to the LA Times, Woolard was the one who made the suggestion to give Steve the Gulfstream jet. No, we figure this is an amicable departure by a guy who figures he's got enough on his plate. Woolard's also on the boards of two other heavy-hitting companies-- DuPont and Citigroup-- and some might see his retirement as DuPont's chairman back in 1997 as a sign that he's intentionally slowing down. Maybe serving on the board at Apple was taking up just a bit more of his time than he was comfortable giving. Okay, so it's not exactly melodramatic; sadly, not every decision in the Apple world is motivated by greed, lust, blackmail, or world domination. We'll have to tag this one as an anomaly.