At Random: Dr. Larry Allen

By Johnna Pinholster

STATENVILLE — For 30 years education has been more than a vocation for Dr. Larry Allen.

As Allen prepares to depart from his position as the superintendent of Echols County schools in the coming weeks, he reflected on his diverse career in education and his reason for stepping away from something he loves.

Allen became a teacher in Louisiana in 1971. The school, he said, was smaller than Echols and called Choubrant.

A teacher Allen encountered as a youngster inspired him to go into the field.

“I enjoyed the way he taught, and I enjoyed the affinity he had with the students, and he encouraged me to be a teacher,” he said.

Though the bulk of Allen’s life has been spent in education, he started out in industry but changed paths when the business he was working for decided he should move to Buffalo, N.Y.

“I said, No way. They were trying to encourage me by showing me winter scenes. There were people that were shoveling snow above their cars,” Allen said. “You don’t show a boy from Louisiana people shoveling snow and expect me to go.”

Fortunately, at the same time, an opening for an agriculture teacher became available at Choubrant and Allen went there.

He stayed at the school until 1979, the same year he earned his doctorate from Louisiana State University. Allen received a bachelor’s degree in agricultural education from Louisiana Tech University and received his master’s from the University of Arkansas.

He would then join the staff of Louisiana Tech University, where he would serve as a college department head and then a college dean until 1994.

In 1994, Allen left his home state of Louisiana, bound for the Peach State and a division chair job at Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College.

In 2005, Allen was preparing to retire from ABAC and considering a move to Baja when an old friend called in a favor.

The friend was the agriculture teacher at Echols County and was in desperate need of a teacher to take his place so he could accept his dream job, Allen said.

“I said I would do it for four and a half months, and I applied for the job, and I got it, and I’m still here,” he said.

When the superintendent at Echols County schools was terminated, Allen applied for the job and became superintendent.

“The job I have had in Echols County has been the job of a lifetime,” Allen said. “If a person could pick their job, could pick the people that he worked with, could pick the community that they work in and pick the students that they taught, it would be here.”

Allen’s career has ended much like it began, at a small school in a rural area.

“Gosh almighty, I feel guilty sometimes taking a paycheck ... from this place. I ought to be paying them for letting me enjoy this,” he said.

The school system has gone through several changes since Allen arrived, including the construction of a new school.

“That will always be a highlight in anyone’s career to see something like that transpire,” he said.

The system has also won a national Title I award and has achieved Adequate Yearly Progress four years in a row, systemwide.

“There are only nine school systems in the state that can brag about that, and we are one of those nine,” he said. “Echols County School System is the best kept secret in South Georgia. Heard of the movie ‘Jewel of the Nile’? We are the jewel of Georgia.”

Though Allen has two and half years left on his contract, he is not leaving at the request of the board or the community, he said.

“As a matter of fact, I feel real comfortable that they don’t want me to leave,” he said.

The reason Allen is leaving is personal — family.

Allen’s sister, who lives near Little Rock, Ark., is not doing well, and he plans to spend time with her.

“I can’t let her leave this world without me spending more time with her,” he said. “My mother passed away in 1972, and I planned to go visit her that weekend, but something came up at school, and I didn’t go, and I’ve never forgiven myself for that.”

Allen has eight brothers and sisters, but coming from a broken home and being forced to leave home in the 11th grade made him very close to his sister.

“She was always there for me,” Allen said. “She was kind of like the guiding light of my life.”

In anticipation of the visit, Allen said that he has shelled out two gallons of pecans for her.

He also has several grandchildren living across the Southeast that he has had limited time with.

“I’ve always believed your job has to come real high on your list of priorities, and I’ve always had it there, and I think at times it has been to the detriment of my family, and I think it’s time — before I’m too old to enjoy my family and I’m too old for them to enjoy me,” Allen said. “It’s time to put family as the second on my list behind God.”

Allen has a grandson that lives in Shreveport, La., a grandson in Ruston, La., a grandson in Killeen, Texas, and a granddaughter that lives in Boone, N.C.

“What I have been for too long is a picture on a refrigerator,” Allen said.

Allen and his wife, Jeanie, have bought a travel trailer and have plans to leave in February to begin their journey to enjoy family.

They also plan to spend several weeks in Baja this summer.

Though Allen is excited about the prospect of traveling and connecting with family, education and the role it has played in shaping a child’s future will be missed.

“I’ve always enjoyed helping kids become more proficient with their hands-on skills and teaching them skills that would benefit them for their lifetime,” he said.

The skills Allen has taught, welding or how to plant a garden, may not be skills a student takes into a job but gives them abilities they can utilize forever, he said.

While teaching in Echols, Allen had a student, a Hispanic girl, in his electrical class.

Her mother was putting in a washer and dryer in their home, and Allen instructed the girl on how to wire the machines. After the work was done, Allen went and inspected it before it was plugged in.

“I was so proud. It was not only accurate, but it was to code,” he said.

Allen said his time on college campuses helped him prepare for his job as a superintendent, but there are differences in how the two entities operate.

“In college, if a child was disruptive, I would show them the door and tell them, Don’t come back,” Allen said. “In high school, it doesn’t work that way, and you have to develop different techniques in order to maintain discipline.”

Sometimes a student is in a high school class because they don’t have an option, and in college they are there because it’s part of their curriculum to be there, he said.

“Usually, in college, you are looking at the top 10 or top 15 percent of high school classes across a given geographic area,” he said. “In high school, you have people that would normally be in that 15 percent all the way down to those who may or may not ever be able to graduate.”

A teacher must look at that diverse academic population as an opportunity to encourage all of them to continue their education either in college or at a technical school.

“I think you have a greater impact on the life of a student in high school and in a public school than you do in a college environment, and I like that,” he said.

Though Allen’s last day is scheduled for Jan. 31, he said he will be gone before that.

“I’m not much on goodbye,” he said.

Though Allen is leaving, he will be back, most importantly in May when he will serve as the speaker for the Echols County graduation ceremony.

This year’s graduation will be the first held on the system’s campus since 2002. The graduation is scheduled to take place in the new school’s gymnasium.

This will be Allen’s 83rd graduation, his first as a speaker.

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