howeenterprise.com
Monday, August 29, 2016
Page #3
New Howe High School Principal has only three rules
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James Teafatiller - new high school principal At the end of last school year, it was announced that Howe High School Principal Michael Smiley was leaving for a similar position at Henrietta High School. That left the door open for Howe to begin searching for a replacement. At the May 19 Howe Board of Trustees meeting, James Teafatiller was accepted and announced as the new high school principal.
Commerce and received their bechelor's degrees in 1990.
Upon graduation, they moved to Louisville, Kentucky so that he could attend seminary school. Receiving his Master's Degree in Divinity of Pastoral Care and Counseling in 1995, Teafatiller moved to Tennessee to take a youth minister position outside of Chattanooga. After starting a family and spending a couple of Teafatiller, who comes from years in that position, in 1997, he Luling High School in the same was appointed by the International position, has four years Mission Board of the Southern experience as high school principal Baptist Convention to Tanzania in and assistant principal at Luling East Africa. The Teafatillers went High School. He was initially to Kenya first to learn Swahili and hired there as Behavior then on to Dar es Salaam, Specialist/Teacher in 2009 where Tanzania's capital city. Primarily a he served in that capacity until Muslim community, Teafatiller was becoming assistant principal in there as a Christian youth 2012. specialist. They stayed there in that position for over three years. Their Unlike most school administrators, travels them took them to Estonia, teaching wasn't his career choice west of Russia. - ministry was. Born in McKinney, Teafatiller was raised "We went from the tropics to what in Garland but entering the sixth they would call the frozen chosen." grade, the family moved to said Teafatiller. "All of our kids Winnsboro, Texas where he would were born in the states before we later graduate in 1986. From there left, but our youngest was born in he went to what was then East Estonia." Texas State University for a semester before transferring to It wasn't much longer that the Panola Junior College. It was family moved back to the U.S. there that he met his wife Dianne where Teafatiller took a pastor and eventually married her. After position at a small church in the wedding, they went back to Nevada, Texas. With Dianne not
working at the time, money was tight with the family and he began to think about supplemental options. "I was looking at two different things - education or being an insurance salesman." said Teafatiller. "My brother-in-law had been doing that but I said, 'no, that's not for me.' I went to the school and got certified as a special education teacher." He stayed there for the next couple of years, but then had the calling to go to Singapore where he became the Director of Admissions at a Christian school. Teafatiller's wife Dianne had become certified as a business teacher and also worked at the school as the administrative assistant to the director. "The cost of living was a bit much so we decided we'd better come back." said Teafatiller. "When we did, we found positions at Luling
and we were there for the next seven years before coming here." At Luling, Teafatiller started out as the special education teacher before becoming the behavior specialist and then on to assistant principal and finally principal. "It's not just stick your toe in to see how the water feels. When we hear the calling, we're all in, let's go." said Teafatiller. In the early part of his time at Luling, he also served as the youth minister at a nearby church before becoming a pastor at different church. During the time of his pastoral position, he became an administrator at Luling and the workload of both positions became too much and he became a fulltime educator at that point. "I wasn't able to give the church what they needed and I wasn't able continued on page 5
