The Allen Board of Education hired several people Thursday to join Allen Public Schools, including a new junior high/high school principal, a band director and a softball coach.

Cody Williams was hired as junior high/high school principal, and also athletic director.

Williams said he is looking forward to Continued Page 3 meeting the teachers as soon as he can, meeting students in the fall, and is excited to be an Allen Mustang.

“I have been in the Ada area for almost 20 years and Allen has always felt like a place where the teachers were hard working and they had great students,” Williams said. “So, when the opportunity for this position came to me, I was excited about the possibility to be the next principal.”

Williams spent the past two years at Tishomingo as an assistant principal and has been in education for 13 years.

“It will be a step up from my role at Tishomingo,” he said. “I was in the elementary so transitioning to the high school and being athletic director will be a change. A good change, though.”

Williams has experience in high school athletics as well. He coached high school basketball in some capacity for 14 years with most of them being as head coach.

“I also taught my whole career in the middle school and high school areas so the move back into the high school will be familiar,” Williams said. “I have only been out of coaching one year so the athletic director portion will be something I have knowledge of what will go into that part of the job.”

Williams graduated from Lindsay High School, earned a Bachelor’s degree in physical education from East Central University and earned a Master’s degree in educational leadership from Southeastern Oklahoma State University.

Williams resides in Ada with his wife, DeeAndra, and two sons, Zechariah and Bennett. Williams said he loves to fish and play golf with his boys.

Band Director

Also during the meeting, the board hired Richard Howard as band director. Howard is the current band director at Ada, and has 27 years of experience teaching at Ardmore, Byng and Ada.

Howard lives in Ada, and started the band program at Byng when he worked there before moving to Ada. Howard wants to revitalize Allen’s band program back to what it used to be.

Softball Coach

The board hired Sam Ackerman as head softball coach. Ackerman is from Strother originally, is currently at Atoka Public Schools and has worked at Earlsboro and Byng, coaching softball and basketball.

Ackerman teaches history and has been in education for 10 years.

Other Business

Also, during the meeting, the board accepted the resignations of Josh Vaughn and Tierra Roberson. Roberson accepted an elementary teaching position in Ada for next year.

“I’m super proud of Ms. Roberson for going