After 34 years of education, six to seven years of thought and a year of deep discussions with his wife, Dr. Todd Edwards decided it was time to retire. He announced his decision in January.
Dr. Edwards has worked as the principal of Bryant high school for the past eight years, prior to which, he worked at schools around central Arkansas.
“I was the junior high principal at Conway for three years, and prior to that I was at Greenbrier for 22 years,” Dr. Edwards said.
He was principal in Greenbrier for 17 of those years, half of the time in the elementary and half in the middle school. Prior to that, Dr. Edwards coached football, baseball and taught social studies.
“I always just loved school,” Dr. Edwards said. “And when I was growing up I loved all my teachers, and I just thought, ‘I’d like to be a part of that.’ I ended up with my first job at Greenbrier and had the opportunity to get to help coach football and baseball. And so I really love that too.”
Dr. Edwards found inspiration to become a principal from the principals in his life.
“I loved the opportunity to be a leader, and I had some very impressionable people in my life growing up: principals,” Dr. Edwards said. “I admired the job they did, and early in my career I had some good principals that I worked for, and I wanted to be one.”
Dr. Edwards found himself working for Bryant after getting a call from Dr. Tom Kimbrell, the past superintendent of the school district.
“He [Dr. Kimbrell] called me one day and said, ‘Hey, I’d love to have you working down here, come talk to me,’” Dr. Edwards said. “I came down and met with them and they hired me as a high school principal.”
Dr. Edwards’ favorite part of Bryant is the ‘small town feel’, which he felt he hasn’t found anywhere else.
“What I’m talking about is on Friday nights at a football game,” Dr. Edwards said. “It feels like we’re at one of the small schools in Arkansas where everybody comes out — everybody is just loud and they love the Hornets, and you can smell the popcorn and hear the band. That just sums up Bryant. It’s a bigger school, one of the biggest schools in Arkansas, but it has a small town, hometown feel to it.”
Dr. Edwards favorite part of being principal is seeing the students’ achievements.
“I love having a front seat to all the great things that the students accomplish,” Dr. Edwards said. “I get to be right in the middle of it and celebrate with everybody and everything.”
What has motivated him the most has been seeing the students’ accomplishments once they have graduated, whether it be medical school, dental school or even just in the workforce.
“ I go get my truck serviced at Everett, and there’s some of our kids changing my oil,” Dr. Edwards said. “It just makes me proud that I had a little, even however small, I had a little part in helping them get where they are.”
The most memorable part of being principal for Dr. Edwards is his ability to hand out diplomas to the students, a culmination of all their success, something he has only gotten to do at Bryant.
“I realized everybody that I represented is standing up there, from the kindergarten teacher to the counselors to the school secretaries and parents,” Dr. Edwards said. “It takes a bunch of people to help a student graduate and get a high school diploma and I got the pinnacle. I’m privileged and honored and humbled to be able to do something like that.”
A big factor for Dr. Edwards in his retirement has been his mom.
“My mom, she lives about an hour away, and she’s getting to the point where I need to be able to take her to the doctor, help her mow her yard and help her rake leaves,” Dr. Edwards said. “I need to be available, more available to her than I am now.”
Another factor in his retirement is a job offer from a past student as a life insurance agent.
“I was just talking to one of my former football players that I coached back in the 90s, and he is an agency owner,” Dr. Edwards said. “He talked to me about coming to work for him, and I thought about it for a long time with my wife and we looked at our options and finally I said yes.”
Now that he is leaving, Dr. Edwards said he is going to miss all that Bryant has to offer.
“I’m going to miss pep rallies, I’m going to miss senior week, I’m going to miss graduation and going to miss, oh, my gosh, everything,” Dr. Edwards said. “I love the state marching band contest. I loved watching the kids perform, so I’ll miss that. I miss all that.”
Under his administration, Dr. Edwards feels the high school has grown a lot, including (but not limited to) more AP classes, the Saline County Career Center, the Minority Leadership Council and the Guiding Coalition. However, Dr. Edwards believes he isn’t needed for the school, or these programs, to flourish.
“Bryant High School is bigger than me,” Dr. Edwards said. “It doesn’t need me, I need it, and that makes me happy too. It’s gonna be here long after I’m gone, and I just like to think that I did my part for eight years, in making it a better place.”
Dr. Edwards believes his successor, Jason Hay, will help evolve Bryant to be better.
“I think Hay is going to take it to the next level,” Dr. Edwards said. “You know, you want to leave a place a little better than you found it, and then you hand that off to the next person and he or she will do the same thing, they’ll make it better and then they’ll hand it to somebody else.”
Dr. Edwards has trust in the job Hay will do, and sings him praises for what he has already done and what he will do.
“He [Hay] is awesome,” Dr. Edwards said. “He’s a lifelong bright guy, and he’s been here since he got out of college. I have full confidence in him. [His son] is going to graduate next year, and so he’s invested as a professional and as a dad. So he will work hard.”
