Huntington named 7-12 principal at Mount Ayr

MOUNT AYR – After two years as principal in Sidney for grades 7-12, Bill Huntington is returning to the area.

The former Orient-Macksburg teacher and coach and Southwestern Community College coach was approved as the next principal for grades 7-12 at Mount Ayr Community Schools by the MACS Board of Directors during a meeting Monday, Feb. 13.

“We talked about it as a family once I saw it advertised and we decided it’d be a good move,” Huntington said. “It kind of put us back in the part of the state we’re familiar with. It’s closer to our older two (children). I’m very blessed to get the job.”

Huntington takes over at the beginning of the 2017-18 school year for Lynne Wallace, who is retiring at the end of the year.

Wallace served as a principal for MACS for 10 years, the last five as 7-12 principal.

“I plan on retiring and, quite honestly, I need to decide what I want to be when I grow up because I’ve done this for 36 years,” Wallace said. “I’ve got all sorts of possibilities. There’s a variety of things I can do but I haven’t decided yet.”

Huntington worked at Orient-Macksburg from 1997 until the end of 2012, serving in several different roles as a teacher and coach. In 2012, he shifted to Southwestern Community College, where he was the head coach of cross country and track and field, as well as a recruiter for the Career and Technical Education program. He worked for Southwestern until 2015, when he became principal at Sidney.

His first year in Sidney, Huntington lived in Sidney by himself, while the rest of his family stayed behind in Orient for his son Joey’s senior year of school.

“We didn’t want to pull him out for his senior year,” Huntington said. “Joey really wanted to finish out his senior year and wanted to wrestle at Creston. We couldn’t deny him that. I commuted back and forth on the weekends.”

This past July, his wife, Diana, and daughter, Olivia, moved to Sidney with him, where they purchased a home. Now, the family will be making the move to Mount Ayr.

“We’re currently looking for a house in Mount Ayr,” Huntington said. “Hopefully we’re going to start making that transition in the next month or two and be ready to go when school starts in the fall.”

Good fit

While he enjoyed his time in Sidney, Huntington said Mount Ayr will feel more like home for him and his family.

“I grew up in Lenox. My first teaching job was at Orient. We thought it’d be a really good fit to be back in that area,” he said. “We have lots of friends in the area and lots of family. I still have a little fourth grader. We thought the school district was academically outstanding, so that would be a great fit for Olivia.”

Huntington was selected from a pool of four candidates who interviewed for the position.

Mount Ayr Community Schools Board Member Craig Winemiller said he liked that Huntington is from a small town and has connections in the area through his work at Southwestern Community College.

“He’s really motivated to get things done. His interview was almost motivational,” Winemiller said. “What I liked, personally, was he was really excited about getting the industrial arts going again. Some of that gets pushed aside when money gets short. That’s one thing he prides himself on in Sidney is he got a welding program going there. That excites me.”

Huntington cited a strong tradition of community involvement in the school district as one the contributing factors to his decision.

“I think they’ve got some really exciting things going on over there,” Huntington said. “One is the incredible generosity of the community. I think what I’m really looking forward to about that district is its great staff. I know quite a few of them and they’re outstanding people.”