GHS athletic staff features three new fall coaches

Friday, June 15, 2012

With the start of the sports season less than two months away, the Greencastle School Board finalized the fall coaching staff for 2012 at its monthly meeting Wednesday.

Although coaching decisions -- particularly head coaching hires -- are ideally made earlier, Greencastle had been operating without a permanent athletic director until the June 1 hiring of Kelly Lewis.

As such, Lewis has been busy in two weeks on the job, evaluating fall coaches from last season and making choices of new coaches.

New varsity head coaches for the fall season will be Art Dwigans for boys' cross country, Sam Hirt for boys' tennis and Jamie Grivas for girls' soccer.

Paige Tesmer was also hired as the new cheerleading coach.

Returning fall head coaches include Dave Lilly, boys' soccer; Josh Buis, football; Garry Anderson, girls' cross country; Brad Kingma, girls' golf; and Liz Spencer, volleyball.

Zac Remsburg was rehired for 2012-2013 as the assistant athletic director. Remsburg served last year as assistant AD to Russ Hesler, who was serving as interim AD.

Lewis said the truncated schedule of evaluations and recommendations of hiring was not ideal, and he hopes to have such things done shortly after each season in the future.

Ideally, evaluations of fall coaches will be completed in November, with recommendations ready for the school board by the December meeting.

Additionally, summer will be busy with evaluations of winter and spring coaches. Lewis plans to have recommendations ready for these two seasons at the board's August meeting.

Future evaluations of coaches in these seasons will run on similar schedules to fall, commencing shortly after the end of each season.

Full fall coaching staffs include:

* Girls' cross country: Garry Anderson, head coach; Laura McMasters, volunteer assistant.

* Boys' cross country: Art Dwigans, head coach; Trina Manalo and Ivonne Martinez, volunteer assistants.

* Football: Josh Buis, head coach; Travis Nicholson and David Stephens, varsity assistants; Brian Bridgewater, Arlie Mitchell, Brad Wood and Jesse Spurgeon, freshman coaches; Luke Morgan and Jeff McCall, volunteer assistants.

* Girls' golf: Brad Kingma, head coach.

* Girls' soccer: Jamie Grivas, head coach.

* Boys' soccer: Dave Lilly, head coach; David Lilly and Cody Watson, assistants; Mike Tucker, volunteer assitant.

* Boys' tennis: Sam Hirt, head coach

* Volleyball: Liz Spencer, head coach; Millie Brabham, assistant; Lauren Smoot and Austin Miller, volunteer assistants.

* Cheerleading: Paige Tesmer, high school; Miranda Patterson, middle school.

* GMS cross country: Ivonne Martinez, head coach.

* GMS football: Ben Wells, head coach; Larry Jones and Randy Pettit, assistants; Adam Edwards, volunteer assistant.

* GMS volleyball: Jane Roberson, seventh grade; Denise Meyer, eighth grade.

Besides the coaching moves, the board approved 25 other personnel items. These included:

* Certified employees: Charity Shouse, resignation as GMS art teacher; Kyle Faletic, hire as part-time GMS math teacher; Steve Bell, hire as GMS math teacher; Jaime Hamock, hire as GHS Spanish teacher; Heather Campbell, hire as GHS social studies teacher; Jessica Stockton, approve as kindergarten teacher for KIDS program; Kathy Terry, approve as teacher for KIDS progran; Andy Warren, hire as technology teacher at GMS.

* Classified employees: Joe Crooks, transfer from Tzouanakis custodian to GMS custodian and resignation as custodian, effective June 30, 2013; Candice Childress, transfer to head Tzouanakis custodian; Carol Clark, transfer to transportation department as inter-office mail carrier; Hellen Dunn, resignation as GMS instructional assistant; Robert Bishop, resignation as Tzouanakis custodian; Cole Doyle, resignation as GMS instructional assistant; Kyle Everts, hire as assistant mechanic and substitute bus driver; Candice Pelfrey, hire as substitute bus driver; Tina Pitts, hire as Tzouanakis ECA secretary; Ashley Allred, hire as MI/Life Skills assistant at GMS; Brenda Green, Wendi Haltom, Amy Lewis and Beth Anderson, approve as instructional assistants for KIDS program; Celeste Perry, approve as pre-school teacher for KIDS program.

* Extra-curricular activities: Jana Boggess, resignation as S.A.D.D. sponsor, junior class sponsor and math academic coach at GHS.

The board also authorized Superintendent Dr. Lori Richmond to make teaching staff adjustments for the 2012-2013 school year.

The date of the July school board meeting has not yet been set, but the board is unlikely to meet on the second Wednesday of the month, the normally scheduled meeting date.

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