MOUNTAIN PINE -- The Mountain Pine School Board has announced five new candidates to be interviewed to succeed Bobby Gray as superintendent.
Gray announced his resignation in January to retire at the end of the school year after 34 years in education. The 2015-16 school year is his sixth as superintendent at Mountain Pine.
The school board previously passed on four finalists presented by an executive search firm. The district contracted with McPherson & Jacobson to conduct the search. The firm has recently worked with the Fountain Lake and Hot Springs school districts as they hired new superintendents.
The firm received 28 applications and the board approved the four recommended finalists. Interviews were conducted with three of the finalists and the fourth interview was canceled.
Board members voted on April 4 to reopen the search. The district opted to conduct the search on its own.
Mountain Pine received 30 applications before a special called meeting held Tuesday evening. Five candidates were selected to be interviewed.
The candidates to be interviewed are Bobby Joe Applegate, principal of Kirby High School; Chris Goodin, principal of Barton-Lexa High School; Albert Snow, superintendent of Fordyce School District; Brad Sullivan, director of curriculum and instruction for the Fountain Lake School District; and Tom Wilson, retired superintendent of the Barton-Lexa School District.
Sullivan submitted his application to Mountain Pine for the first time during the reopened search. He was one of three finalists for the superintendent position at Fountain Lake. The Fountain Lake School Board voted in March to hire Michael Murphy, superintendent of the St. Clair R-XIII School District in Missouri, to succeed Superintendent Darin Beckwith, who will become the director of the Dawson Education Cooperative after the current school year.
Sullivan led the district's character applications for the middle school and high school. He is the president of Region V in the Arkansas Activities Association, past president of the AAA's principals association, former principal at Magnet Cove High School and was the director of small learning communities for the Cabot School District.
Goodin and Wilson both applied for the Mountain Pine post during the first round of the selection process. Goodin also applied to Fountain Lake.
Snow last applied for a local position during the Hot Springs superintendent search in 2015. Applegate has not submitted an application for previous local administrator searches.
Focus groups have been formed from students, classified staff, certified staff and administrators. Candidates will interview with the groups throughout the day on Friday, Monday and May 4-6.
Board interviews will be held at 5:30 p.m. on each of those days. Interviews with the board are open to the public.
An executive session will follow each evening interview in which comments from stakeholders will be reviewed. The board intends to select the next superintendent by the May regular meeting.
Local on 04/28/2016