LA Former Heads of School: Lessons in Leadership

Since consolidating in 1983 as one school, Lipscomb Academy has had six heads of school lead the institution. In addition to pursuing challenging academics, they have fostered a Christian community that helps shape students to make choices rooted in integrity, compassion, purpose, and service. Hosted by Dr. Brad Schultz and Amanda Price, this …. is Mustangs Unbridled.

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Transcript

00;00;00;00 - 00;00;36;08
Speaker 1
Since consolidating in 1983 as one school. Lipscomb Academy has had six heads of school leave the institution. In addition to pursuing challenging academics. They have fostered a Christian community that helped shape students to make choices rooted in integrity, compassion, purpose and service. Hosted by Dr. Brad Schultz and Amanda Price, this is Mustangs Unbridled. Before we begin this episode, I'd like to welcome Marc Pugh as our guest host today.

00;00;36;10 - 00;00;47;27
Speaker 1
He's been a teacher at Lipscomb Academy for 43 years and is uniquely tied to all six of our guest. So a special thank you to Marc for being willing to do this. So are we all ready?

00;00;47;29 - 00;00;49;21
Speaker 2
Let's go.

00;00;49;23 - 00;01;19;04
Speaker 1
The legacy of Lipscomb began in 1891 with two friends, David Lipscomb and James Harding. They launched their vision and opened a school offering academic education in a Christian context. By the early 1900s, students as young as first grade were enrolled at Lipscomb. The high school was accredited in 1927, and the first kindergarten class was added in 1946. The school became a thriving institution and is now the largest private Christian school in middle Tennessee.

00;01;19;06 - 00;01;41;28
Speaker 2
In 1983, Let's Come named its first campus wide director to provide oversight when grades K through 12 consolidated as one school. Since then, there have been six heads of school to serve Lipscomb Academy. I've had the unique privilege to serve under all of them. Each has brought their own style of leadership and has contributed to the legacy of the institution.

00;01;42;03 - 00;01;58;16
Speaker 2
And I can't help but think of the Scripture. Amanda in in Esther. I believe that you were placed here for such a time as this. And so when I think back about each one of you, that one just keeps coming back to me. So welcome. Welcome in today.

00;01;58;18 - 00;02;12;19
Speaker 1
So we have a room of eight people. And you know me and you know Mark. But we want each one of you to go around the room, introduce yourselves, say how you landed at Lipscomb, and what years you served as head of school.

00;02;12;21 - 00;02;39;15
Speaker 3
Okay. I'm Keith Nicklaus. My association with Lipscomb began in 1967 as a high school student. So high school here, college here. After college departed for six years. Was a sixth grade teacher, Diesel Harding Christian School, doing grad work all through that period, and then coming back here to teach at the university for six years. A health issue that had me sidelined for about six years.

00;02;39;18 - 00;02;58;00
Speaker 3
And then I came back and taught in the Learning Enhancement Program. And then Richard hired me to be the curriculum director. And ultimately, then after a couple of years of that, began working at said to the the academy or campus school at that time and held that position for 11 years.

00;02;58;02 - 00;03;21;20
Speaker 4
My name is K.C. Ferris, and I served here in between 2017 2021. Quite a few different roles. I was coming out of Houston, Texas, where I'd been for 19 years in Christian education and knew Greg Allen there, and he had come to Lipscomb a few years earlier, came up to work in the Department of Development and just spent that time doing that, served in a few other roles, was the interim head of school.

00;03;21;20 - 00;03;29;09
Speaker 4
At some point before Dr. Shorts got here and then got to serve with him as well in our area, the Mustang Life and our middle school.

00;03;29;11 - 00;03;45;02
Speaker 2
My name is Greg Glenn, and I actually landed here out of high school at a 17 year old at the university. And so that was my first introduction to Lipscomb. It was David Lipscomb College at the time, and I would say God brought me here at that time. And so when I look around this room, I'm amazed at the influence.

00;03;45;02 - 00;04;01;24
Speaker 2
When I think of I did my student teaching at Overton with this gentleman over here to the left you're going to hear from was the principal. And then I graduated here and in Keith Nicholas, who you just heard from, was help me sign my first contract and Polk County. And and actually, everybody here in this room has had a heavy influence on my life.

00;04;01;24 - 00;04;33;18
Speaker 2
And so I served here from 2014 to 2020 as head of school and been highly blessed. I'll forever love Lipscomb. My name is Richard Jones. I came to Lipscomb in 66 because my older brother was a college student here and he had a boat. So really spiritual decision on choosing my college. I came back in 1980 to work here, and my first answer as to the path was basketball.

00;04;33;20 - 00;05;09;22
Speaker 2
Don Meyer was the college basketball coach, and we had connected through camps. I'd brought teams up here to his summer camps. And Don sent word that there was an opening at the university for a basketball coach, and I applied for that job, and they wisely hired Frank Bennett, which was a much better decision on their part. But then a few months later, I got a call to come and interview for the high school assistant principal and athletic director.

00;05;09;25 - 00;05;32;08
Speaker 2
And that interview was held at Overton at the regional track meet. Got to see Jack Barton run, which I coming out of rural West Tennessee. I had seen nothing like that before, then came here to work, as I said, in 1980 as assistant principal and athletic director. And I totally agree with Clay. It was a God thing. It wasn't.

00;05;32;08 - 00;05;39;05
Speaker 2
It wasn't me. God had his hand all over it, especially in hindsight.

00;05;39;07 - 00;06;18;21
Speaker 5
And Mike Hamlin came to Nashville from Atlanta in 1964 to the university, got my degree in math education at the college, and then started working in the metro schools. Retired in 2000, the principal of Overton High School. After 34 years in the public schools. Then I was still working at Overton when I was teaching an adjunct course in ED leadership at the college during the summer, and I met with Jim Thomas one day in the hall and he talked about someone leaving and wanted to know if I'd be interested in coming to Lipscomb University and work.

00;06;18;21 - 00;06;46;00
Speaker 5
And I came over and was director of Teacher Education and chair of the College of Education for a few years. And then Jim had to leave and go into the admissions department. And I was Dean for a while. And in 2008, President Lowery asked me if I would come over to the Academy and serve as headmaster at the Academy for a year.

00;06;46;00 - 00;07;12;03
Speaker 5
While they did a search for a new head master. I did that for a year, and after that year, they had completed the search and they asked if I would stay for three more years. And I actually stayed five years at that time. So six years from 2008 to 2014.

00;07;12;05 - 00;07;18;17
Speaker 4
I'm Brad Schultz, the current head of school. I came in 2000, the beginning of COVID, which is a lovely time to join an organization.

00;07;18;18 - 00;07;19;25
Speaker 2
And then it's.

00;07;19;27 - 00;07;45;19
Speaker 4
Still here. I grew up in West Tennessee, so I was very familiar with Lipscomb. I grew up in Henderson, Tennessee, where Fred Harmon is, so I mainly knew them as a rival and then went to the university there as well and continued to see them that way somewhat. Then I was in school in Atlanta for about 17 years, which I would consider a sister school of Lipscomb Academy and over those years had a lot of opportunities to mix and mingle, have an opportunity to get to know the school better, which I think helped pave the way for me to be here today.

00;07;45;21 - 00;08;09;09
Speaker 2
Okay, So deep down, we won't out of our contributions to any organization to be meaningful and impactful. But when you think about it, when it comes to Lipscomb Academy, each of you as leaders held the power to shape the future of the institution. And with that in mind is, is there a lasting impact or lasting legacy that you feel like you've left the school?

00;08;09;12 - 00;08;30;02
Speaker 5
I think a couple of things that happened during my tenure. One was the name changed to Lipscomb Academy, so that was one that was, you know, very complicated and very involved. You know, when you think about all the things that you have to do to change the name of the school, that's one of the things. Another was vision.

00;08;30;03 - 00;09;09;06
Speaker 5
It was chaos during that time for changing a lot of the facilities on campus, and particularly the the Mickey Adams Fieldhouse, that that was one thing that was discussed using more of the property up at the elementary school and maybe moving the middle school back that way. There were there were a lot of things that kind of shaped a new direction for some of those things and to try to relieve some overcrowding, you know, maybe on this end of the campus and actually maybe looking at a new campus down toward the football stadium, then connections with the university, you know, we had a university.

00;09;09;06 - 00;09;29;17
Speaker 5
We have students that would that would get to the end of a certain end of a certain curriculum. And they'd taken all the coursework that could, but they were in. So we started looking at more ways to do dual enrollment courses or letting them take college courses as part of their high school diploma.

00;09;29;20 - 00;10;13;28
Speaker 2
When I saw this question, I really struggled with it because I don't know that any of us can evaluate our own legacy. So I asked my kids, I've got two boys who went here from second grade, fourth grade through high school, and both of them came up with very similar answers. A little bit of context when I first arrived, having worked ten years in Oberlin County and the last six and a K 12 came in that summer in June, and somewhere in the summer I saw a Pony Express, the newspaper from the prior year, and I believe the picture had 16 new high school teachers.

00;10;14;06 - 00;10;40;21
Speaker 2
And as a guidance counselor by training, I thought, What if I had done both? My kids are more intelligent than their parents. One of them loved athletics, was a great fit in Canton. We could have stayed there forever. The other one was not his visions about like mine, and he was not athletic. And I thought I was bringing him to Nashville where he'd get a better education.

00;10;40;21 - 00;11;03;11
Speaker 2
And it was all six new teachers. I thought, What's going on? So the legacy my kids put in front of me had names on it. Glenn McAdams, Mark Pugh, Tim Taylor, Robert King. And I'm going to stop there because those are the ones that are still here, except for Glenn, and he's still here in many ways.

00;11;03;13 - 00;11;29;17
Speaker 3
I'll speak to what Richard just said. Richard laid the groundwork for a lot that happened with all of us that came after him. So those people that you hired, including the gentleman here at the table with us when I stepped into it, were just so helpful. I stepped into an administrative team with years of experience, not only here but in other places as well.

00;11;29;19 - 00;11;52;27
Speaker 3
So that was that was hugely helpful. And one of my joys was getting to come and work with him every day thoroughly. It was a time Richard had just if I'm remembering this right, you had helped raise some money to start working on facilities and you raised enough money to work on the gate out here and get get that gate of is the entrance to the high school.

00;11;52;29 - 00;12;23;10
Speaker 3
And so when I stepped on board, there was a pent up demand. Richard had started LPAC Right. And he had gotten parents on board with a lot of things, giving them input in a variety of things. And one of the things parents wanted was better facilities, okay? And so that coincided with Steve Flat as a new young administrator on the university side and the university really didn't have a building vision going on at that time.

00;12;23;10 - 00;12;46;12
Speaker 3
So they shifted all of their development help, you know, all of their resources to help us on the campus school side. So that was a period where we had a lot of facilities expansion. There was a lot of money raised during that period. Mark and I spent a lot of time in construction meetings. You know, we're talking with contractors, so on and so forth.

00;12;46;14 - 00;13;10;14
Speaker 3
So that that was one of the probably the major thing as far as changes that occurred. We also had curriculum changes that occurred. That was the time frame when tech came in. So we had to figure out how we were going to manage all of that. We brought uniforms in and that was a whole another thing altogether and not always popular with some people, but it was just quite a period of change all the way around.

00;13;10;17 - 00;13;13;29
Speaker 1
Is LPAC Is that a parent booster club?

00;13;14;00 - 00;13;19;03
Speaker 3
Lipscomb Current Advisory Council is the acronym.

00;13;19;06 - 00;13;46;15
Speaker 2
I'll pop in there just for a little bit, and I think that I'd like to come back to that advisory group because I do think that played a big role as I got started in the time that I served here. But I also want to go back to Candace McQueen, who was at that time was the College of Education when I came in in 2014, and it was obvious her impact academically was just enormous and so it was fun to be able to tag team in knowing the great distinctive we had with the university and be able to open up a lot of the things we've just discussed and take those to the next level.

00;13;46;15 - 00;14;05;17
Speaker 2
I felt like that was a significant piece there. Then obviously, as you just mentioned, Mike, about the athletics, the Glenn McAdam Center and what was going on there, that was to see our community rallied together to turn that to honor someone like Glenn McAdams in a way that would put something together would really be beneficial for the school long term.

00;14;05;17 - 00;14;28;05
Speaker 2
I think that was a real blessing and something I was very thankful to see that go all the way through the Morpheus of the groundwork that you guys said it started. But I think even above all of those, I think that the people here, what's so neat is, is the dif the professional people doing their roles and watching them do them so well and giving them a chance, giving them space to do what they do and do it well and then put it all together.

00;14;28;05 - 00;14;49;20
Speaker 2
It truly is a blessing. But I want to go back to the advisory group. Those parents came back and they would give us ideas in because we're a unique situation. We don't have our own board. We had a committee on the board. That advisory group played a very instrumental role and gave us some some leverage to be able to do the things that we needed to do at that time to take the school to the next level.

00;14;49;22 - 00;15;12;07
Speaker 3
Can I add a quick note on Candice? My wife was teaching here and Candice was over going to school at the university. She had student teaching experiences over on this side and she was in my wife's class for an extended period of time. And Sharon, more than once would come home to me and say, If you ever get a chance to hire her, you've got to hire her, you know?

00;15;12;07 - 00;15;17;25
Speaker 3
So a lot of us recognized Candice as talent very, very early on.

00;15;17;27 - 00;15;34;05
Speaker 4
Yeah. And I would say the things that stood out to me the most when I was a part of some great, great teams here, the team that Greg was leading, the team that I got to work with, with Dr. Schultz. But a couple of things that stood out was, you know, we really recognized the alumni and the impact alumni could have here.

00;15;34;08 - 00;15;58;03
Speaker 4
And at the time we would do some alumni things. But but to have a stronger impact. And actually, Greg Glenn came to us with the idea in development about doing a mustang alumni awards, and that started up with Sharon Davidson. And we started it very small and very humbly, but we knew it was going to be very impactful and getting to build those relationships was a big, big deal.

00;15;58;10 - 00;16;21;19
Speaker 4
I think for our community. It was good for me to get to know folks at a deeper level and the history here and then the other one I would I would think about would be the creation of what we call Mustang life, where we took normally a lot of times our discipline was handled from a dean of students and or a student life director, and that just didn't have the right wording to me.

00;16;21;20 - 00;16;43;20
Speaker 4
I thought it was giving a bad impression on the student life and we really wanted to do more. We could have impactful relationships with our students. And so the liberty that Mr. Glenn gave me, Dr. Schultz gave me to pour into that. Of course, you had great folks doing that. We also combine that with spiritual formation. Amy Welch with Melanie Grogan, with Richie Pickens.

00;16;43;21 - 00;17;01;21
Speaker 4
And so those are the two things that stand out the most of of just what we're able to do to build relationships with our current students and then also with our alumni. My comment would be more just a gratitude of all the things you guys just mentioned, which makes my job so much easier. The people you've helped bring on and the programs you've helped develop.

00;17;01;23 - 00;17;22;07
Speaker 4
Greg I would also say the seed school that you helped start. I mean, we mentioned today at a grandparent's day that that's our fastest growing area, 256 students in there. Now that that program was in existence before that. So, I mean, it's just incredible to think of where all these different things started. Once again, I'm still here, so it's hard to say what or what what will last or not.

00;17;22;07 - 00;17;38;10
Speaker 4
I will say, if somebody were to say, Brad, here's what you seem to say a lot or focus on a lot would probably be around personalized, customized learning and seeing how we can meet the needs of the individual students. And so and if somebody said, as I say, that's a fair comment that I do spend a lot of time talking about that.

00;17;38;13 - 00;18;15;08
Speaker 1
So we all know that the school year is unpredictable and it's a whirlwind of lots of great things happening, maybe some surprises or some growth opportunities. KEITH You mentioned embracing Tech. And Richard, you mentioned the Addams Athletic Center, and so you also were involved in building Addams Hall. So we had construction projects, we had state championships. I'm kind of surprised nobody mentioned the state championship in that when you think about exciting or memorable moments during your tenure, what's one moment that stands out?

00;18;15;11 - 00;18;44;14
Speaker 5
I think what you said about athletics, there's nothing that generates the excitement that went in a state championship in one of the sports. I understand we have two teams right now knocking on the door of that. One of the one of the state championships was, I think, the eighth baseball championship was one. During that time, Ernie had had eight state championships and baseball and that was very exciting to see that happen.

00;18;44;15 - 00;19;11;17
Speaker 5
I think a boys track championship during that. I wasn't at the academy the last time that Glenn's team won the state championship, but his post-game interview was one of the best I have ever heard. You know, in terms of given all the credit, talking about his play, it was it was I was watching it on TV and they interviewed him after the game.

00;19;11;19 - 00;19;44;01
Speaker 5
And it it was what you'd want your coach to say at a faith based institution about what that means. And I've always valued athletics because of the lessons that teachers that you can never learn in a classroom. And there are just certain things about, you know, giving yourself up for others, working as a team, all kinds of things, setting personal goals, all the things that many coaches teach is very important to your program.

00;19;44;08 - 00;20;13;22
Speaker 5
And but maintaining a balance on all of that, not letting that take the place of academic mix or the faith based component and having all of those things blend together and work together is really, really important. I think that's what I saw among our coaching staff and and even our teachers talking about it as we talked about connections and stepping up opportunities for for kids and academics.

00;20;13;24 - 00;20;48;10
Speaker 5
Being connected to university is a very unique situation that most of the other schools just didn't have. And so using that to our advantage was important. The other thing was, was the own coming wave of use of technology in kids having devices, you know, all the time and our pads and all of that in entire working together to try to get a grip on how can we use that instruction without it becoming a detriment to instruction.

00;20;48;12 - 00;21;09;26
Speaker 5
And so we that was one of those years was the first year that we required on our pad for all the middle school students. I think maybe we started with one grade level and the teachers thinking creatively about how do we use that then as a learning tool instead of a distraction.

00;21;09;28 - 00;21;44;12
Speaker 3
Yeah, it made me think, Glenn. I mean, Glenn left his mark on all of us who worked with him. I'm profoundly grateful you brought him here, and I miss him. You know, I miss him as a friend and a neighbor and colleague. But one time he told me I can't remember what we were debating at the time, but he he was a big proponent of having enough opportunities across this school so that every kid can find a plug in point and be a person of value, whether it's in the arts or athletics or whatever.

00;21;44;14 - 00;22;05;06
Speaker 3
And so that's one of the things I think we all tried to work on, is we were here for some reason. I guess I was talking facilities a moment ago. One thing that comes to things that come to mind, we went without a cafeteria mark for how many years was it? Two years where we had vendors come in in the hallways, but we survived all that.

00;22;05;06 - 00;22;33;27
Speaker 3
But when we finally opened that cafeteria, man, then that was a big deal. And then the other thing, we had classes in middle school library in the basement of Elam for years and years and years. And when we finally got phase one, two library opened up the day we moved the library, we had kids in a bucket brigade from Elam coming over here to the library, just handing book after book after book across.

00;22;33;27 - 00;22;36;15
Speaker 3
And that's a visual I never forget.

00;22;36;18 - 00;22;59;09
Speaker 4
You know, I was here in March of 2020, and I remember a couple of weeks before spring break, we had one of our leadership meetings, our associate head meetings. I believe they were on Thursday afternoon. And we started talking about, hey, we probably need to prepare our teachers in case we need to go virtual for a little bit after spring break.

00;22;59;09 - 00;23;28;02
Speaker 4
And I was thinking, look, we're coming to school. You know, I grew up under Greg Lee and you don't miss school. And they said, well, this is there's this COVID going around. It's gaining traction. There's talk we might not come back after spring break. And so the Friday before spring break, we gave the kids that day off, the teachers came in and we just quickly tried to put what could we do to provide instruction if we were to have to not come back for a little while.

00;23;28;04 - 00;23;56;29
Speaker 4
And as you know, looking back now, we never came back that year. We ended up seniors that were devastated by that. We ended up having their graduation, I believe it being in July. We did it in two waves at the Opryland Hotel, and it just ended up being crazy. And then and then really the next year being here with Dr. Schultz, the the opportunity we had to really work with how are we still going to build relationships and make an impact on kids who have to be six feet apart and have to have a mask on?

00;23;56;29 - 00;24;11;10
Speaker 4
And so some of my best times were when we would do we called it COVID lunch and you had to be spaced out in the cafeteria. We didn't have enough room in the cafeteria, so kids were able to go to the gym and we could space them out in there. And we would also played COVID safe games during that time.

00;24;11;10 - 00;24;29;13
Speaker 4
And I told Dr. Schultz, please don't come down and check to make sure we're six feet apart. But it was some of the best times that we didn't even know we were missing out on because we were longing for that community so much. So that's what stands out the most for a traumatic, but also had such a positive impact as well.

00;24;29;15 - 00;24;56;12
Speaker 2
Casey, I think you were. Thank you. Were reading my notes ahead of time right there. So maybe just answer this question for your part. But as a head of school, you all face and encounter tough situations, whether it's with the student body, faculty and staff, the community at large, possibly something that's on a national level. And in those moments of crisis, it takes a good deal of courage and resilience to lead the schools.

00;24;56;12 - 00;25;16;19
Speaker 2
I look around here, I'll see. Keith 911, I think you know of the COVID that you and Brad both went through. Richard, I know several things that we went through that were not not not popular at all. But can you share just a little bit of a challenge and how you faced those and then how you overcame those challenges?

00;25;16;21 - 00;25;52;18
Speaker 5
Biggest challenge I face, and this was very short time after I had come over to the Academy, was the recession of 2008. That was almost traumatic in terms of the number of parents that not long after that started started coming in. And it was stories of losing their job, having to close down their business, all kinds of things in danger of losing their home and things that impacted their ability to be able to pay to tuition in.

00;25;52;18 - 00;26;24;06
Speaker 5
Many of them had to withdraw their children after the first semester that year and is certainly still him was impacting because that was all a long term recession rather than just one that popped up. I thought Dr. Lowry had had a brilliant idea when he said, instead of our spending time talking about how do the things that are happening and how we're going to deal with it, we need to start planning for the recovery.

00;26;24;08 - 00;26;51;03
Speaker 5
And so I thought that was a good thing to do, to start having everyone think in a positive direction. Okay, When we do start coming out of this, because nobody knows how fast the recovery is going to be here, what kind of things do we want to plan for? Because it was impacting the university financially in a big way and and it was certainly impacting us in many ways as well.

00;26;51;07 - 00;26;58;01
Speaker 5
So that I'd say that was a very big challenge. It right at that time.

00;26;58;03 - 00;27;23;22
Speaker 2
Yeah, I think there were a number of challenges as Mark you will let into that everyone here faced during the time. But I know coming I remember coming right out of the gate and Mike, you mentioned with a name change and so there was a perception there we had to work hard to try to we had such this rich history and to galvanize that with the new part where we're going and just calling it the academy, we had a lot to go through to kind of just get a perception and get the culture the way we want it.

00;27;23;25 - 00;27;47;27
Speaker 5
I've got to comment about that because the day that it was announced in chapel, we were concerned about how this image right at the end of the year, that year, and we thought, you know, how what's going to be the response of our audience, which was the whole high school and you had the seniors that were graduating, sitting down front, and then the next group was the next year's senior class.

00;27;47;27 - 00;28;15;27
Speaker 5
And that senior class was not going to be impacted because they were graduating. But the class that was coming into their senior year in just a few days, a huge cheer. And I mean, it really was gratifying to see that that group of students who were looked at as next year's leading class to take the ownership of that and take the announcement in a positive way.

00;28;15;27 - 00;28;27;19
Speaker 5
And so there was a really nice cheer that went up about that. And they showed the logo and all of those things and they were very positive about it. That helped.

00;28;27;21 - 00;28;50;14
Speaker 3
Relative to your question, you know, I would we all have scars from our time here and we all have moments we'd probably like to have back in terms of decisions in that kind of saying and and you ask, okay, how did you do that? I think you pray a lot and I think you lean heavily into those around you.

00;28;50;14 - 00;29;13;28
Speaker 3
And that's where I was profoundly grateful for the administrative team that I had. And it at that time, particularly in those early years, the university side, you know, some of the people over there, I had known for a long time in that team, and they were tremendously helpful as well when when things came up like that one. Let me not mention a specific one, but talk about a big picture item.

00;29;13;28 - 00;29;50;04
Speaker 3
One of the things that I wrestled with for 11 years was trying to figure out, okay, what what's the appropriate vision for the school? Where should this school beheaded? Who are the peers of this school? Okay, how can I hold true to the mission of the school Richard did during his time? You know, the mission statement had been crafted mission to have developed some campus schools to master so that students master what knowledge and skills appropriate to them become Christlike an attitude behavior yet it well it was everywhere, right?

00;29;50;06 - 00;30;18;10
Speaker 3
I mean, we had that mission statement everywhere. But then as Nashville changed and as the demographics of our student body changed, I was trying to remember what the Church of Christ family percentage was when I started. I can't remember. I don't know if you can, Richard. Back when you were, it was well above 60% when when I was here, I'd say closer to 70% or better.

00;30;18;13 - 00;30;55;07
Speaker 3
And I would imagine, Brad, right now, if you've looked at it, that that demographics changed dramatically as Nashville has changed. So you have all these things changing and then figuring out as time goes by what do kids need academically and to prepare them for life in a fast paced, changing world that is exponential in terms of change, that that's kind of what used to keep me awake at night and then trying to at the same time always stay grounded in this is about helping kids come to know Jesus and spiritually form them.

00;30;55;15 - 00;31;02;16
Speaker 3
But in the context of looking ahead to what will be for them when they're adults.

00;31;02;18 - 00;31;23;02
Speaker 1
So y'all all gave some pretty heavy answers because of that. I'm jumping around in my questions. I want to know. So there are, like I said, there are lots of things that go on. Some of the things we can't talk about. Some of them are laugh out loud, funny. Some of those you can't talk about. So thinking about something you can share.

00;31;23;02 - 00;31;34;26
Speaker 1
Is there a funny moment that stands out for you, whether it with a a colleague, a faculty, staff or a student, some something that you can share that doesn't violate any of the privacy laws?

00;31;34;28 - 00;31;57;02
Speaker 2
I've got one that my oldest son was on the quiz bolting, which I don't even know if that exists anymore, but we went all over Nashville in middle Tennessee, competing in academic contests at same time he was on it. There was a gentleman that's still on campus that was a part of it named Phillip Hutchison.

00;31;57;04 - 00;31;58;16
Speaker 1
Oh, this is perfect.

00;31;58;18 - 00;32;25;19
Speaker 2
But Philip could only participate on Saturdays because Friday's he was involved in basketball. And we were, I think at Hillsboro, I'm not sure where it was for the contest. And the night before had been really pretty interesting and the team for pretty even. And then the next day, Phillip said, and I mean, he was on one of these roles that you have to know, Phillip, to appreciate it.

00;32;25;19 - 00;32;49;05
Speaker 2
Just question after question. He was just talking. And finally, some parents stood up and said, Hey, dad, can I go to a basketball game? Phillip is still amazing. I want to mention a story here that I have fun with thinking about with Casey Farris situation and working together. And he's we've got this gentleman that's a great grandparent and he's getting ready.

00;32;49;05 - 00;33;09;09
Speaker 2
We find out at a little soccer event that he's getting ready to turn 100 years old. And so said went into Casey's office. So we got we got to celebrate this guy. And he says, yeah, what should we do? And he says, I think we we ought to we ought to sing Happy Birthday to him in chapel. And let's get a cake and let's put 100 candles on it and let's bring him in.

00;33;09;12 - 00;33;29;14
Speaker 2
And so sure enough, you were all in comes in there. Casey just had him drive himself on over. He got on in there and everybody sang him Happy birthday. We didn't need the fire extinguisher, though. We did have it ready to go. And it was just one of the best moments. And still that guy continued to bless this institution.

00;33;29;14 - 00;33;42;08
Speaker 2
And what a what a hero. But it was funny as all get out and and I love Casey will tell that story a lot better than I could, because when he would get up there and interview them and asking some questions, it was hilarious. He had the student body rolling.

00;33;42;11 - 00;34;07;02
Speaker 3
Yeah, You're talking about my high school sophomore, Bible teacher right there. He were like, we had a shower for one of our young ladies that worked. Here was a teacher, I think it was held at Dana Irwin's house, a baby shower, and Mike McPherson was there at the shower. And this young lady was opening her gifts and going about and Mike disappeared for a period of time.

00;34;07;04 - 00;49;54;21
Speaker 3
And then he appeared again. And I noticed that the gift pile had gotten larger over here at this girl speed. Well, he she proceeded and there were some gift bags and she started pulling clothes out of these bags for toddlers. And I mean, it was somebody either obviously given a very gentle.