20 Questions with former superintendent Larry Williams

1. What was your first job ever?

"My first job ever was as a newspaper boy. I started carrying the Fargo Forum as a fourth grader in North Dakota."

2. What was your favorite class in school?

"Music and math, but I enjoyed all of my classes. I had a terrific English teacher as a sophomore. We did a lot of writing for him. He was very rigorous. Did that come back to pay me in spades when I went to college!"

3. Tell me about your first job in education.

"My first teaching job I had about a week to prepare for. I was on fires in Glacier National Park, so I reported for duty a week late with the superintendent's permission. I showed up for my first band class with just an hour of prep time. We tied into three pieces of music. One was the Star Spangled Banner. They kind of booped and blopped their way through it. I stopped and said, 'No. The Star Spangled Banner has to be done with vigor -- that means at an uptempo.' They responded."

4. What made you want to take on the challenge of being a superintendent?

"I'd been a leader in my park services work and my Boy Scout camp work. I enjoy leadership and I enjoy working with people. I think those were the qualities that got me into being superintendent."

5. Tell me about your first job as superintendent.

"My first job as superintendent was Great Falls, Mont., and I started in 1989. That was my second job. I started teaching in a small school district outside of Great Falls called Belt. That particular community had gone through six music teachers in the previous five years so it wasn't very stable. Even though I had a provisional certificate, I negotiated a two-year contract by saying, 'Look I can help you straighten things out, but I'm going to need some time.'"

6. How many school districts have you worked in?

"Seven school districts."

7. Are you officially retired?

"Well, I am I guess. I actually let my certification expire.  All I'd have to do is take six credits and I'd be back in business, but I don't think I'll do that. I've had a wonderful career and I enjoyed every extension to it."

8. Why retire now?

"My wife retired when I retired from Sioux City, thinking that I meant to retire and spend time with her. Then I kind of did a double take and worked both for the symphony for a year and two years at Hinton. Then low and behold Akron needed assistance for a year. I enjoyed both of those communities very much."

9. Why did you come back to education after you retired the first time?

"Simply because I enjoy students and I enjoy faculties. I believe in public education very deeply. School districts go through trauma at times and we struggle with budgets and state legislatures and funding, but the rewards of working with students and faculties are beyond anything."

10. Interest in education runs in the family?

"I have two brothers in education. One of whom was a teacher his entire adult life. The other of whom was a teacher for about half of his career and then became an elementary principal and now is doing an interim superintendency in Vermont. It's kind of remarkable, actually. We all three graduated from Dartmouth College. Dartmouth is not known for training educators."

11. Are you a workaholic?

"I don't think there's any question about that. The short answer is, I guess so."

12. How do you think students have changed over the years?

"I don't think they've changed a lot, but their attention is drawn to social media a great deal."

13. What do you think the key is to get students interested in their studies?

"You put an instrument in the hands of a student and they can't use their hands to hit somebody or poke them. The secret to engaging them is first of all to have the basics of your discipline down well. Secondly, they have to be able to break those basics down at the student level and they also have to have high expectations of students."

14. Do you think the job of superintendent has changed?

"Well, it's become more political. And superintendents tend not to stay in communities as long as they used to. It wasn't uncommon for superintendents to stay 20 or more years and that changed eons ago. When I came to Sioux City there had been 13 superintendents or acting superintendents in 35 years."

15. How did you prepare to transition into a superintendency at another school?

"Ironically, I didn't have time to prepare in any of the situations. Obviously when I was hired as an interim in Hinton they were in an emergency situation. On Sunday I was interviewing and on Monday I was on the job. I was hired as an interim in Great Falls and was subsequently given a permanent contract. But I was hired in August for a school term that began in September. I had about three days before I was on the job after they issued the contract to me."

16. What's your fondest memory from working in the Sioux City School District?

"I have so many. Reading to a class of children during Dr. Seuss week would be a fond memory. I'm very proud that I stayed a lot longer than the average tenure before me. I'm proud of the new buildings we completed. I guess one of the things I'm very fond of was the way at my retirement dinner that they had a lot of fun at my expense. It was thoroughly enjoying."

17. By retiring later in life, do you think you missed anything?

"If your life is short you do, but I've been blessed with several years already that I've been able to spend with my wife. ... I didn't think about missing things, but I did think about the fact that my wife had retired and expected me to retire."

18. Now that you're retired, what are you doing?

"I've been doing some writing. I was a leader in Music Educator's National Conference and in the Montana Music Educators and in the arts throughout the West, so I've been capturing some of my memories there writing short articles for little-known professional journals. We do a lot of hiking. I enjoy housework and home repairs so I putter around the house and yard a lot. We have about half an acre in Glacier."

19. You're into music. What instruments do you play?

"I played saxophone and clarinet. I also was a vocalist. I've been well-trained in both the choral and instrumental area. I enjoy singing a great deal, but I've given up playing the saxophone for the most part simply because as superintendent I didn't find time to practice enough. I've keep my vocal and sight reading skills alive."

20. What are you currently reading?

"Right now I'm reading a very interesting book that my sister gave me. It's called 'Saving Mozart.' It's a novel but it's written in a diary form. The major figure is in a sanitarium suffering from tuberculosis, but he's a musician. This is written during the period of the second world war. He feels the Nazis are using Mozart's music for the wrong purpose."