Cheney superintendent to retire July 1

School district's Larry Keller says goals were achieved, he's ready to slow down

By BECKY THOMAS

Staff Reporter

When Cheney School District Superintendent Larry Keller announced his retirement to the school board last week, everyone in the room had good things to say. School board members thanked Keller for his leadership in promoting the largest construction bond in school history in 2010 and in helping the district weather tough economic times the past four years.

But afterward, longtime assistant to the superintendent Sharon Throop, who has spent most every day with Keller since he started in the post in 2008, smiled with tears in her eyes.

“I guess I'll have to train another one,” she said.

As the board accepted Keller's retirement—effective July 1, it also immediately began making plans to hire a new superintendent. The board held a special meeting Wednesday, Feb. 15, to develop a timeline for the hiring process.

School board president Suzanne Dolle said the board would discuss the details at the Wednesday meeting, adding that the district would likely hire a consultant to conduct the process. It would be ideal for the new superintendent to come on before Keller leaves, she said, to help with the transition.

“You don't want to have long gaps,” she said. “You want to bring someone in quickly, but make sure it's the right person.”

In an interview Friday afternoon, Keller said he had started thinking about retirement late last summer after he noticed the long hours of the job were getting to him.

“I still love what I do, but this is my second career and a lot of my career in life has been running and leading organizations,” he said, noting his nearly 30-year career in the U.S. Air Force before working in K-12 education the past 12 years.

“I've always felt I could make a difference in the organizations I've been in, so I've enjoyed that,” he said. “But after that number of years, there just comes a point where I finally thought about it and said, really, I'm ready to have a little more control over my time.”

An Olympia native, Keller attended Central Washington University, studying to become a teacher while working for the Air Force ROTC. He also met his wife Karen during his time at CWU.

He graduated in 1971 and accepted a commission into the Air Force, planning on a six-year tour after flight school. But he said the excitement and opportunities he found kept him in the military, where he flew support for NASA missions and eventually became wing commander at Fairchild Air Force Base. The Kellers settled in a home on Granite Lake.

After he retired from the Air Force in 1999, Keller renewed his teaching certificate and taught special education at St. John for three years. Meanwhile, he took night classes to get his master's degree in education leadership and working through the Washington State University superintendent program. He then took a job as superintendent of the tiny Mansfield School District, east of Grand Coulee, where he worked for five years.

“I told my board that I liked my job, and I wasn't planning on leaving unless the sup' job came open at Medical Lake or Cheney,” he said, noting that he and his wife wanted to return to the West Plains.

So when former Superintendent Mike Dunn left the Cheney School District to become ESD 101 superintendent Keller threw his hat in the ring and was selected.

When he arrived in 2008, Keller had little time to become familiar with the district and his goals as a leader—including transitioning Cheney from a small to a mid-sized district and leading the charge on a large construction bond—before the economy crashed and the district almost immediately saw cuts to state funding.

“When you talk to the old-timers who were in education 30 and 40 years ago, they have never seen an economic time like we've been in all four of the years I've been here,” he said, adding that Cheney has been fortunate to have a solid reserve fund to protect jobs and programs.

Though there have been struggles, Keller said he felt he “did what I came here to do.” He was gratified by the community support in 2010 for a $79 million bond to build two new middle schools and an elementary school.

“The promises we made when we passed that bond—on budget, on schedule—we've kept those promises. I feel good about that part.”

The middle schools are up and enclosed, with openings set for September, and the new elementary school will be bid out next month for construction work to begin in April or May. Keller said he felt the construction was going well enough for someone new to take over the district leadership.

Meanwhile, he said a new teacher principal evaluation system set to be implemented in 2013-14 will create a lot of work for the district, and he wanted to give his replacement enough time to prepare for that.

“There'll be a huge workload in terms of professional development for the staff, and it seemed to me that if I were going to retire, this was a better year than a year from now,” he said.

Keller said he has enjoyed his role as a sort of flag-bearer for the district in the communities of Cheney, Airway Heights and unincorporated areas of the district. He places a lot of importance on being visible and attends as many events as he can. That makes for long hours, and Keller, 62, said he has started to feel it.

“I could tell over the last couple of years, if I couldn't get a full day (off), I was just more tired. I think in some ways my body was trying to tell me, you need to slow down a bit.”

He plans to do just that after his retirement this summer, playing more golf and spending more time with his wife, two children and one grandchild. But Keller still plans to be visible in Cheney schools and is considering doing some teaching in the area later on.

“I'll be sitting on the sidelines after June,” he said. “I'll be able to see that elementary be finished, I'll be able to support schools, go to games and do things and watch the community improve on that.”

Becky Thomas can be reached at [email protected].