Highland BOE appoints new council member

By Randa Wag­ner –
More than 57 stu­dents, par­ents and res­i­dents attended the High­land Board of Education’s spe­cial meet­ing Sun­day evening that prompted a 90-minute exec­u­tive ses­sion as the first mat­ter of business.

When the meet­ing resumed after 8:30 p.m., Board Pres­i­dent Eric Thacker apol­o­gized for the unusu­ally long ses­sion. One of the pri­mary rea­sons the spe­cial board meet­ing was held April 1 was to appoint a board mem­ber within the time frame required by the Ohio School Board Asso­ci­a­tion when a seat is vacated. Bill Short will serve the remain­ing term pre­vi­ously held by Dave Gleason.

A num­ber of cit­i­zens spoke in sup­port of Coach Mike Hoyng and the boys’ bas­ket­ball pro­gram. Hoyng’s con­tract was up for renewal for the 2012–2013 school year at Sun­day night’s meeting.

Doris Mosher said her boys played bas­ket­ball for High­land and she believes in Coach Hoyng.

“The way I feel is, let the coach ‘coach,’” she said. “I know a lot of peo­ple wanted him ‘out,’ but he’s put a lot of time into this school and he respects the kids, and I respect the coach.”

Bob Angley, a 1990 alum­nus, spoke about the impact Mr. Hoyng had on his life.

“It’s not all about win­ning and cham­pi­onships, it’s about life lessons,” he said, “about learn­ing how to con­duct your­self as an indi­vid­ual. Mr, Hoyng was one of the most influ­en­tial peo­ple in my life dur­ing my time at High­land. It’s not always about the wins and losses, it’s about help­ing young men become men.”

For­mer High­land bas­ket­ball player Calvin Pierce said he noticed this year started out rough for the younger play­ers, but there was a big improv­ment by the end of the year. Theresa Belcher com­mented that her son, who did not want to play bas­ket­ball at all at the start, came to enjoy the game under the guid­ance of the four coaches.

Express­ing an oppos­ing opin­ion, Don Baker com­mented that 17 years ago his daugh­ter, now deceased, was called a “hill­billy that should go back to Ken­tucky where hill­bil­lies belong” by Mr. Hoyng. “I know every­one has their own opin­ions, but that’s a fact and God’s truth,” he said.

Hoyng’s con­tract in the Var­sity Boys Bas­ket­ball pro­gram for the 2012–2013 school year was approved by the board.
Regard­ing the appoint­ment of Bill Short, res­i­dent Bob Suther­land asked the board what selec­tion process and cri­te­ria was used in choos­ing the new board member.

“Pri­mar­ily, the board had many options,” Eric Thacker responded. “We iden­ti­fied the attrib­utes that a board mem­ber would pos­sess, and we weighed heav­ily on the fact we were look­ing for some­body with prior expe­ri­ence and who is ded­i­cated to High­land. There were other ele­ments we dis­cussed as well. We had numer­ous indi­vid­u­als will­ing to ded­i­cate them­selves and serve in that capac­ity. After lengthy dis­cus­sion, we decided to select Mr. Short.”

Other employ­ment rec­om­men­da­tions that were approved were sup­ple­men­tal con­tracts for the 2012–2013 season/year as fol­lows:
Shawn Wil­helm, Cross Coun­try; Chad Car­pen­ter, Var­sity Foot­ball; Caleb Dun­can, Adam Gies, Matthew Jones, Scott Pauley, Cody Reese, and Michael Reid, Foot­ball Assis­tants; Dustin Green, Michael Reid, II , Lance Stam­baugh and Eric Storer, M.S. Foot­ball; Robert Ter­rill, III, Var­sity Vol­ley­ball; Shan­non Belcher, Vol­ley­ball Assis­tant; Kayla Ross, J.V. Vol­ley­ball; Derek Bower, M.S. Vol­ley­ball (8th); David Hig­gins, Boys Bas­ket­ball Asst.; Christo­pher Rupe, J.V. Boys Bas­ket­ball; Jerry Perkins, 9th Boys Bas­ket­ball; Brett Behn­feldt, 8th Boys Bas­ket­ball; Robert Anglin, 7th Boys Bas­ket­ball; Eliz­a­beth Mor­ri­son, Var­sity Girls Bas­ket­ball; and Mar­cie Cham­ber­lain, J.V. Girls Bas­ket­ball. Also approved was Eric Thacker as a vol­un­teer assis­tant in the girls’ bas­ket­ball program.

The board also accepted the res­ig­na­tions of retir­ing Ele­men­tary Library aide Linda Sheets and Ele­men­tary Inter­ven­tion Spe­cial­ist Erin Porter.

The next reg­u­lar High­land School Board meet­ing will be held Tues­day, April 17 at 7 p.m. in the high School cafetorium.

Posted by Randa Wagner on Apr 4 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.