With the untimely passing of Georgiana Principal Roland Pettie, the Butler County Board of Education has some big shoes to fill, something they discussed last week during their April meeting.

After interim superintendent of education Wayne Boswell learned of Pettie's death, he designated assistant principal Keith York as acting principal at the school.

"I immediately called Mr. York and designated him as acting principal," Boswell said. "We knew there were decisions that had to be made. If Roland were here he would have said 'take care of Georgiana High School.'"

York, who returned to Georgiana High after spending time in the Conecuh County school system said the faculty and students at the school are coping as best they can.

"With such a traumatic event taking place, everyone has done extremely well as far as being able to pick up and carry on," he said.

"Our faculty has done a good job of keeping things running as normally as possible. It's that time of year where everything is pretty much already set. It's just the shock of everything after Mr. Pettie's passing."

Boswell was complimentary of how York has handled himself and how he's reacted after Pettie's death.

"I've been impressed and pleased with that young man and Mr. Pettie had nothing but compliments and praise for him," Boswell said. "He's stepped up and things are running as normal as can be considering what's happened."

The board also voted to increase York's salary to the same compensation level of a principal's while he's acting principal.

In addition to addressing the administrative vacancy at Georgiana High, the board was also notified of the retirements of four long-time educators in the county school system.

Johnny Autrey, Career Tech Director at Greenville High School; Don Yancey, Greenville Middle School Principal; Nancy Shanks, a teacher at McKenzie High School and Glenda Yancey, a teacher at Greenville Middle School will all be retiring at the end of this school year. Combined the four have 132 years experience in Butler County schools.

Boswell said the administrative vacancies at Greenville and Georgiana High Schools and Greenville Middle School have been posted state-wide and he hopes to have some recommendations for the positions at the May board meeting, especially at Georgiana and Greenville Middle School.

"We need to move on with both of these administrative vacancies and we'd like to get someone in place as soon as we can," he said. "If we have a good candidate for both positions I'll make a recommendation."

In other action the board approved the school system's role as vendor for the city of Greenville's summer feeding program as well as a similar program in the south part of the county for schools that are hosting summer school programs. The board also established fees for summer school items that are not funded through Title I.

The board also discussed numerous summer maintenance projects and approved those that will be funded by state money. There is also a list of proposed maintenance projects that will be funded by local money, but the board agreed to put a hold on those for now until they can determine the status of repairs to the gym bathrooms at Georgiana High.

The approved projects are:

N Replacement of the gymnasium roof at Greenville Middle School

N Replacement of the flat area of the roof at R.L. Austin Elementary School

N Replacement of the heating and cooling units at R.L. Austin Elementary, which were put in place in 1989 and are not energy efficient

N Replacement of the breezeway roofs and band room roof at the Butler County Educations and Community Center (old Greenville High School)

N Replacement of the heating and cooling units at W.O. Parmer Elementary School, which are 14 years old

N Adding a lobby and bathroom and making the gymnasium handicapped accessible at McKenzie High School

N Replacing the home side stadium seats at Georgiana High School and making them handicapped accessible. An architect will determine whether they are replaced with concrete seats or with aluminum seats.

The pending renovation projects that will be funded by local money if approved are:

N Painting the halls at Greenville High School and carpeting or tiling the office hall

N Replacing the carpet and repairing the floor in a room at Georgiana High School

N Removing a wall in the library at W.O. Parmer Elementary to make more efficient use of space and replacing the rusted out restroom stalls in the bathrooms and making them handicapped accessible