Difficult Decisions

No, I haven’t lost my mind. Some would argue otherwise. I made a conscious decision to spend a year as an assistant principal at a small school in remote Alaska.

June 30, 2022 saw me retire from the Mississippi Education system. I was staring retire right in the eyes at 50 years old. I had held an official job of some sort since I was 15.  With the reality of retirement starting to set in I was faced with the question, “What are you gonna do?”  I had spent 10 years in the army before joining the education field and traveled extensively during that time.  As a teacher, coach and administrator I had led trips to the UK, Ireland and Italy. For fun trips my wife and family took long road trips with no destination in mind but we always had fun. Once we left on Friday afternoon during July.  Five adults packed into a BMW 328. Myself, my wife, son, daughter and future son in law. We spent 2 nights in a hotel out of 5 nights on the road but we saw about 3,000 miles worth of road plus many beautiful sights. Another trip for backcountry camping in Yellowstone with my wife and 4 friends happened a few years later.  So to say I’ve always had a sense of adventure would be stating the obvious.  I wanted something different. I enrolled in classes at my local Community College to move into the Internet Technology field. I studied for and passed my life insurance license exam. The plan was work in the insurance industry and go to school. Still I couldn’t scratch the itch to do something more. I surfed several job apps looking at jobs in odd places. Seattle, WA, Astoria, OR, San Antonio, TX, Denver, CO, Northern Virginia, to name a few.  I applied for local jobs with little luck.

Friday, July 15th everything changed.  After I had a few disappointments during the week, my wife received an invitation to go to Florida for the weekend. I was at home, alone, with nothing but time on my hands. I started going through job search apps again. Three education jobs stood out to me, an assistant principal job in central Colorado, a principal position in Kuwait and an administrator position in Alaska. I decided to apply for all three.  Expecting to hear from none of them, I was shocked that by Tuesday I had appointments to interview for all three.  The big question for all three was why would I want to work so soon after retiring. My answer was the same to all three.  I’m too young to completely retire.  I want to do something different but familiar. And some of my favorite times in education was when I was a building level administrator.  Surprise number two was that I ended up with a decision to make… Kuwait or Alaska.  At 11:30 Monday morning I was headed east to Kuwait and warm weather. A familiar place with roads I knew and a language in which I could, although in a limited capacity, communicate.  By noon  I was headed to the great white north. Headed to a place I’ve never been, where people speak Yup’ik three days a week in the school. Where the term “You can’t get there from here” takes on a real meaning.

To be honest, I didn’t expect anything like this to be a possibility and I was not prepared. My last experience with serious cold weather was winter warfare school in January of 1996.  I immediately started looking at websites for clothing that would 1 be here in a limited amount of time and 2 would keep me from turning into a popsicle.  Needless to say, my north Mississippi wardrobe was lacking in the serve cold weather preventing department. I watched any and every YouTube video I could find about the location, Googled as much information I could find, and shopped for the best airline tickets available on short notice.

In addition to scrambling to make ready for a near departure I found myself going through the process of obtaining my Alaska Educator’s License. First, it’s not free, second there are steps you must follow with a checklist as an out of state educator. I recommend downloading the checklist and forms, reading through them and then calling (good luck getting someone to answer on your first try) the office of educator licensure.

I had so many doubts about doing this at all. Excuses kept popping up. But, as my wife will attest, I am slightly stubborn once I settle on a course of action. I am determined to see this through and I hope to find humor and adventure in the most unlikely places. But, as I told my wife, planes fly in both directions and if I get miserable enough I can always head south. Miserable for me won’t be about the weather. I have a tremendous family that I interact with almost daily and this includes a granddaughter that will be seven soon and starting second grade and a nephew that is going into his senior year. Those issues maybe be more of a problem than any other. I also hope to give something back to a country that has done so much for me in my life. If you can stand reading my ramblings maybe you will get to share and enjoy my school year in Alaska.