Published: July 09, 2009 10:19 pm      

Catlin welcomes new superintendent

Catlin School Board members welcomed their new superintendent to the district Thursday as Gary Lewis oversaw his first meeting at the helm.

Lewis took over the superintendent reins July 1 from the Guy Banicki, who retired. Banicki served the district as superintendent for the last eight years and moves on to take a college teaching position at Illinois State University in Bloomington-Normal this fall.

Lewis spent his last two years as superintendent of the Shiloh school district in Hume. Before that he was the director of operations for Westville schools for three years, and had served two years as the Westville Junior High principal.

Before his time in Westville, Lewis was the junior high principal of Tri-Point Junior High in Piper City. He began his career in education teaching social studies for four years in Sheldon.

Lewis said he is excited to be in Catlin and so far his first weeks have been going well, but have been busy.

He said he’s already been on top of the Catlin High School roof, assessing for himself stonework that needs to be fixed.

Lewis graduated high school from St. Joseph-Ogden in 1987 and completed his bachelor’s degree in education from MacMurray College in Jacksonville in 1992. He obtained a master’s degree from Eastern Illinois University in Charleston in 2000 and got his specialist’s degree in 2007.

The new superintendent said he will spend his early time in Catlin assessing, not altering, because things seem to be going well as they are.

“This first year, I’m going to try to learn the district,” Lewis said. “I don’t like to make changes, just to make change.”

In other business, board members:

Heard that the capital bill soon may be signed by the governor. The $29 billion public works bill is of particular interest to the district because it has included earmarks for new school construction in the past.

Heard Lewis say he expects to be meeting with superintendents from the Oakwood and Jamaica districts soon to continue talks of a proposed cooperative high school among the three. The plan has always hinged on available monies from state or federal sources.

Moved the October board meeting from Oct. 7 to Oct. 15.

WHAT’S NEXT

The Catlin School Board will meet at 7 p.m. Aug. 13 at the superintendent’s office.