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Harrell brings compassion to administrationBy Barry Merrill 20 February 2008 — Lately several education professionals have, as they sometimes do, relocated from their Wayne County schools, to Princeton. The most recent is Tim Harrell, who came to Princeton during the Christmas break. He’s the new assistant principal, taking over for Michael Price, who moved to the central office.
He and Mr. Price have been good friends for many years, working together in the southern end of Wayne County. The transition has been good, and the students and the community have made that transition easier. “Everyone loved Michael,” said Mr. Harrell recently. “The kids have been wonderful. Kids have come up and introduced themselves to me.” He has taken over for Mr. Price, doing everything that Price was doing including curriculum for K-12, working with the school calendar, and maintenance issues, working with the custodial staff. He adds that he will do anything else that Mr. Denning would ask. “I want to support him.” Mr. Harrell knows a lot about the pressures facing a principal. He comes to Princeton from Southern Wayne, where he had been serving as the school’s principal. He’s been asked more than once about the move from being a principal to assistant principal. “With the difference in the supplement in Johnston County, it’s not that much difference in pay. And I wanted to see things from another perspective.” He is grateful for the opportunities he had in Wayne County. His mother, Kaye Harrell, worked for 30 years in the school system at Grantham, as the bookkeeper and SIMS operator at Grantham School. His dad, Dannie Harrell, who worked at Burlington Industries in Mt. Olive for 30 years, was in the last graduating class at Grantham. Tim, of course, went to Grantham, and then on to Southern Wayne, a member of the 1993 graduating class. He went to NC State, majoring in agriculture and extension education, with a minor in horticulture. It fit in with growing up on the family farm. His high school driver’s education instructor, Eddie Radford, was the principal at Southern Wayne when Tim was nearing graduation from State, and he asked Tim to call him when he passed the test to give him his teaching certification. On July 1, 1997, right after graduation, he was at his old high school on staff. “I loved coaching," Mr. Harrell remembers, and after four years teaching Ag, Mr. Radford agreed to move him over to P.E. so he could get more into coaching. He coached basketball, football and softball, mostly as an assistant and JV coach. He decided to try to get into school administration. He talked with Wayne Schools Superintendent Dr. Steve Taylor, and Dr. Taylor assigned him to Carver as an assistant provisionally while he worked on his degree. He went on to Southern Wayne as an assistant principal. In 2005 he earned his master’s degree from NC State and was named principal at Grantham School, and he expected to stay there a while. A year later, when former Rosewood High principal Richard Sauls retired a second time as Southern Wayne principal, Mr. Harrell was asked to take over that job. Mr. Harrell served for the last school year at Southern Wayne. After beginning his second year at the school, he ran into another friend who is now at Princeton, Marty Gurganus. “I don’t know why, but I felt that I need to tell [Harrell] there will be a position available at Princeton,” Mr. Gurganus related. If asked to answer the why, Mr. Harrell believes the answer comes from above. “Every job change that I have had, I’ve never had to search or look. When I was ready to move into administration, a principal door opened. When I was looking for a change, Marty came to Southern Wayne to see his son play and mentioned the opening. I want to follow the Lord’s leading.” As he puts it, he was raised in a family that puts God first. He attends Eureka Christian Church in the Grantham Community. He is a member of the men’s choir and the regular choir. He’s not a deacon yet, but his father and grandfather both served in leadership positions at the church and he expects one day to serve as well. He treasures the experiences he had in teaching vocational education and in coaching. “It helped me to be a better teacher and administrator, seeing students outside the traditional classroom, seeing students in hands-on activities, welding or restoring an old tractor. I saw students who were struggling academically who found success in agriculture." Through coaching, he found ways to motivate his players. He saw the need for structure and discipline for most young people. “A lot of young people need to be told what to do.”
He also admits that sometimes he misses coaching and teaching and the daily interaction, but understands that administration is an opportunity to make an impact outside the classroom and with the entire school. He also misses the small family farm, the smell of the curing barns and the values passed down from his parents and grandparents there, and is afraid that those things will be lost in coming generations. As an assistant principal, much of his work pertains to discipline. “When you discipline, you need to minister to them in one way or another. For some students, their home life is not the best in the world.” During the last school year while he was at Southern Wayne, he got a call from Mr. Gurganus about a Princeton student who did not have a good home life. The child's parents were on crack, and they had sold virtually everything in the house except for the mattress they slept on. Struggling with the bad home situation, the student had missed classes and was in danger of not graduating. They successfully transferred that student to Southern Wayne to graduate on time. He also shared some of the excitement of students at graduation last year, knowing some of their struggles to reach that point in their lives. This year he’s looking forward to a great rest of the year at Princeton. “I’m appreciative of how the community and students and staff have welcomed me with open arms. And to me, education is all about people, working with young people and staff: it’s all about people.”
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Wayne Wilson News Leader
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