Walking into room 319, Principal Dr. Jay Pickering begins the press conference with The Prospective staff by making the students laugh.

“For those of you that don’t know, I’m kind of a big deal,” Pickering said. “I have several notebooks bound in leather and my desk is made of mahogany.”

At 42, Pickering has racked up numerous passions. In his youth, he said basketball was a substantial part of his life.

“I actually planned to be the next Larry Bird,” Pickering said. “We did not have X-Box 360 or XBox One or whatever I’m sure my son will be asking for at Christmas. When the sun came up, you woke up and went to play basketball.”

As his life progressed, Pickering found a new dream. After reconstructive knee surgery kept him from his first love, his “wonderful surgeon” inspired him to set his sights on orthopedic surgery. He was pre-med his first year of college at Hendrix University in 1991. Pickering said he gave pre-med his all, but it just didn’t quite work out.

“Biology is a science class that doesn’t really have a whole lot of hands-on in college. You’ve got to read 50 pages a night and be able to memorize certain terms, and I had a very difficult time doing that with my handicapped condition [dyslexia] as well as really comprehending on a quick basis,” he said.

Pickering said he was diagnosed with dyslexia in second grade, but he said he never used it as an excuse. It only made him work harder.  Moving on from pre-med, Pickering found another career path. His mother was an award-winning AP Lit teacher at J.A. Fair High School at the time and his father taught at SMU graduate school. With a history of educators in the family, Pickering understood the importance of education.

“I had some fantastic educators and some coaches that were like my father figures. I had one chemistry teacher, and I wanted to be an educator because he touched my life,” Pickering said. “I felt a great need to give back to the community what was given to me.”

So he graduated from Hendrix in 1994 with a political science major with an emphasis in minority studies. He then found a teaching position at Little Rock Parkview High School. Pickering said he was the first teacher at Parkview to teach African American history.

“Parent conference night, I remember like it was yesterday, parents would come in and they’d read their child’s schedule, they’d look at me, they’d look at the door, they’d look back at me and I’d say yes ma’am this is African American history and yes, I am the teacher,” Pickering said.

He taught and coached for seven years at Parkview. He soon married and knew that a child was on the way. Pickering said he simply couldn’t spend time raising other children and neglect his own. He also said he wanted to get his hands into the big picture. This led him to administration and eventually to being the principal here beginning his fifth year.

“The center of my world is my son. He’s everywhere I go,” Pickering said. “When you’re a classroom teacher, you mold the 150 students that you have. If you’re a coach, you mold your team. As a principal, you’re able to have a guiding hand in everything and mold the entire school.”

Through all of his changing dreams and loves, Pickering said he’s figured out that family comes first and he hopes to convey that to the faculty. He said he struggles with finding the time to help everybody, and he tries to do all he can to assist the faculty and students, but in the end, the hardest challenge is encouraging every student to reach his full potential.

“I want to hear students say, ‘yes, my last resort will be the University of Arkansas, but I want to go to Harvard, or Yale or Vanderbilt’. There’s nothing wrong with the University of Arkansas, it’s a good school, but our kids should demand more,” Pickering said.

Pickering said he finds it disappointing when students strive for mediocrity. He believes there should be more than one National Merit Finalist with the student body here and that students should work harder on the AP exam rather than just settling for concurrent credit. He asks that all students do their absolute best at school

“The greatest gift you can ever have is the gift of education. No one can ever take away the diploma you receive. The more education you have, the better off you will be in life,” Pickering said. “That’s all I can ask, is that you just give me everything you’ve got.”