COLONY — It is the strong sense of community pride and family atmosphere between staff, teachers and students that makes Jerry Turner’s drive to school each day a joy, he said.
Turner assumed the duties of principal at Crest High School and superintendent of USD 479 at the beginning of the school year.
For 21 years Turner had been an administrator in the school system in Baileyville in northeast Kansas on the Kansas-Nebraska border. Last year several districts consolidated, he said, and “They could keep only so many administrators so I began looking for a new school.”
Turner began his career in 1983 as a physical education teacher. It was his mentor when he began teaching who set him on a path to going back to college to complete his master’s degree and superintendent’s certificate.
USD 479 has more than 200 students in preschool through 12th grade. In the six months that Turner has been at the school he has made an effort to get to know the names of all the high school students.
“I’m in the high school lobby each morning greeting the students and have lunch every day in the cafeteria with them,” he said.
Turner said he has only missed one athletic event at the school and that was to stay home to watch the Kansas State University Wildcats.
Turner said his No. 1 goal is his students’ education and helping them to learn how to be successful in life.
“I want each student to be the best he can be,” Turner said.
Turner, 54, and his wife, Julie, are living in Iola until they can find a home in Colony. They have two grown children and three grandsons.
“I’m not a fancy guy. You won’t see me in a tie each day at school. What you will see is someone who cares about the students and their welfare,” he said.
