Incoming principal relishes challenge

Free State's new leader says patience, hard work are key to scholastic success

Ed West is the incoming principal at Free State High School West grew up in Topeka.

Bob Karr thinks Ed West’s career as an educator has mirrored that of a cross country coach.

It’s fitting because Karr met West – selected last week to be Free State High School’s next principal – when he was a long-distance runner and math student for Karr at Topeka Seaman High School.

“Sometimes we don’t get the greatest athletes, but if we have the patience to allow them to achieve, they achieve,” said Karr, a retired teacher and coach.

Karr said West has carried that attitude into the classroom as a teacher, coach and now a principal.

“I would say that kind of tells the story of Eddie. He bought into that idea early on, and the students identify with that,” Karr said.

Lawrence school board members are expected to approve West’s hiring Monday to replace the school’s first and only principal, Joe Snyder, who is retiring at the end of this school year. People from West’s past and several who interviewed him for the Free State job have lauded the current principal at Jefferson West High School in Meriden.

‘Education is my hobby’

After school, when he’s not supervising activities or spending time with his family, West will crack open books on leadership and education.

He’s also trying to finish his dissertation for his doctorate in education from Kansas State University.

He calls education his hobby. That statement played well in his recent interviews with Free State faculty members.

“It’s not just a job for him. It’s his passion,” said Jason Springer, a Free State history teacher.

Scott Myers, the Jefferson West superintendent for the last two years, said he often drops by the high school to see West. Usually he can’t find him.

“He’s in the classroom seeing what’s going on,” Myers said.

But he also says West doesn’t micromanage his staff.

Teachers at Jefferson West say he’s been supportive in helping them set up programs and expand courses.

“Anything I needed, we’ve looked at,” said Steve Buss, an agricultural education teacher.

“He is a student of leadership and very willing to adapt himself to what’s needed at the time,” added Blanche Wulfekoetter, an American history teacher.

No job is too small for him, she said. One morning last week, West was serving gravy from the school kitchen.

“He doesn’t do that boastfully. You’d just never know,” said Rod Smith, a chemistry and physics teacher.

When he moved to Jefferson West in 2004 from St. Marys High School, West announced two of his goals: to be in everyone’s classroom every day and to learn every student’s name.

He accomplished both, Smith said.

Now he’ll be moving to a much larger high school, one with about 1,200 students compared with 350. But West says he’s wanted to move back into a 6A school since he served as an assistant principal in Hutchinson from 1996 to 1999.

“While I may not get to know every student to the same extent that I do here, we want to make sure that somebody, some adult in that building, has a connection with every student,” West said.

Career path

West lives not far from where he grew up in Topeka. Now he lives there with his wife, Cheryl, and their three children.

He can trace his first inkling of wanting to be a teacher to a seventh-grade career day in civics class at Northern Hills Junior High. Then, he knew he wanted to be a math teacher and cross country and track coach.

When he attended Topeka Seaman, he met Karr, a man West considers to be his mentor. Then when West left for Emporia State University, by coincidence, Karr changed jobs to Emporia High School.

This allowed West to eventually be a student teacher in Karr’s classroom and to be a volunteer coach for cross country.

West taught and coached at Washburn Rural High School from 1990 to 1996 before moving to Hutchinson. As a young teacher, he sought out Karr’s advice.

Karr, who now teaches math courses at Emporia State and Flint Hills Technical College, said West has developed the right philosophy about education.

On the day the district announced his selection for Free State, West said: “I just think what really matters in an educational setting is the same in Lawrence as it is here at Jefferson West, just challenge every kid to their full potential.”

That’s the mentality West developed from coaching long-distance running, Karr said, because great benefits come from hard work.

“Many things are possible that we don’t think are possible if we just stay the course and allow people to get where we want them to be,” Karr said.