Bowe gets elementary principal job

by nathan osterBig Horn County School District No. 3's board of directors stayed in house in the search for the next principal of Greybull Elementary School, tapping longtime middle school science teacher and current technology director Casey Bowe to fill the position.Board members approved Bowe's hiring during their Feb. 13 monthly meeting at the central office. Bowe will replace Brett Suiter, who recently resigned, effective at the end of the current school year.Supt. Barry Bryant noted in his report to the board that Bowe was the only one of the 11 school district employees with administrative endorsements who expressed interest in the position at GES.The employees at the elementary school certainly supported the move, as 100 percent of the teachers, custodians, food service works and paraprofessionals in the building — 35 people in all — signed a letter of support for the hiring of Bowe.While serving GES will be his top priority while school is in session, Bowe will also continue in his role as the district technology director. He'll just do that during the summer months, roughly for 33 days, according to Bryant.Bryant said the district is currently looking to hire an administrative assistant to work eight hours a day, 260 days per year, under the direction of the technology director and the superintendent."This person will be working with PowerSchool and doing daily reporting and technology help desk," said Bryant, adding that the district is currently drafting a job description."By doing this and keeping Casey as the tech director, we will save around $50,000 a year," he said. "We will try it for a year and if it's too much, we will look at other options of either hiring a tech director or outsourcing."Bowe came to Greybull in the fall of 2006 from his home state of Wisconsin. He split time that year between the middle and high schools, picking up the class loads of Eddie Johnson and Bob Leach, who at the time were moving over to the technology side.Bowe has been with the district ever since. This past fall, he moved into the technology coordinator position. Ag teacher hiredThe evening's other's personnel moved also involved a person with ties to Wisconsin.Jennifer Schultz, currently the ag teacher in the Baraboo (Wis.) High School, was hired to lead the rebirth of the district's agriculture program.Schultz has been in Baraboo since the fall of 2011. Prior to that, she did a one-year stint as an agriculture teacher at Craig and Parker high schools in the Janesville (Wis.) School district.She holds a bachelor's degree in agriculture education from the University of Wisconsin-Platteville and a master's degree in agriculture education from the University of Wisconsin-Riverfalls.Emma Mercer and Morgan Haley, both of whom are involved in FFA, got a chance to meet Schultz while she was in town for her interview. They spoke of her in glowing terms, telling the board that they were impressed that she had been an FFA teacher and taken four teams to nationals in horse judging.Mercer and Haley also agreed that they saw in Schultz some of the same qualities that made Jared Boardman such a strong ag teacher and FFA leader when he was teaching at Riverside High School."She wants to build a program," said Mercer.