In exactly one month, Matt Fearing will exchange his two-way radio and dress slacks for state-of-the-art broadcasting equipment and combat boots.

Fearing, assistant principal at Southwest Junior High School, will report for duty in the Kansas Army National Guard. He’s part of a public affairs detachment that will be deployed for Operation Enduring Freedom, most likely stationed for a year in Afghanistan.

“A lot of people have asked me the question: Do you want to go?” he said Monday. “It wasn’t exactly something I was gung ho for, but it’s my duty.”

Sgt. 1st Class Fearing, 44, has been assistant principal at Southwest, 2511 Inverness Drive, since 1998. He taught social studies at West Junior High School from 1993 to 1998. He’s married and has a 17-year-old son.

The only other Lawrence school district employee known to have been called into service is Lori Arnold, a fourth-grade teacher at Pinckney School.

The 105th, which is headquartered in Topeka and linked with a detachment in Oklahoma City, Okla., has a mission to provide news coverage, media escort and related duties. Fearing’s training is in broadcasting.

“Members of the 105th have anticipated since 9-11 that we would be called up to federal service and have prepared ourselves and our families for this possibility,” said Maj. Rick Peat, 105th commander. “While we will miss our families, have to put our college studies on hold and cause some hardship for our employers, we all know that our freedom doesn’t come cheap and are eager to do our part.”

Fearing’s last day at Southwest is Feb. 6. He will undergo training in Kansas, including at Fort Riley, before shipping out.

Reaction of students at Southwest has been comforting, Fearing said.

Matt Fearing, assistant principal at Southwest Junior High School, talks to members of the ninth-grade boys basketball team at the school. Fearing, a member of the Kansas Army National Guard, will soon be deployed as part of Operation Enduring Freedom.

“Twenty or 25 students wrote letters to me,” he said. “I just finished getting the last responses written. The kids have been great, very supportive.”

He said a former administrator at Lawrence High School, Mike Browning, would fill his shoes at Southwest. Browning was an associate principal at LHS prior to retiring in 2001.

Fearing was in the U.S. Army’s military police force for 6 1/2 years. He was stationed in Virginia, California and Panama.

He served one year in the Virginia Army National Guard and has been with the Kansas Guard for more than a decade. In Kansas, he made the transition from military police to public affairs.

While on active duty, Fearing studied Spanish in California.

“That won’t do me any good now,” he said. “I’m in the process of trying to learn Farsi.”

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Fearing said he would take an educational approach to this stint in Afghanistan.

“That’s the way to go at it,” he said. “To see it as a learning experience.”