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The President
Speaks:
KENNY BLAKENEY
SCSPMA President
Planning For The Future
As the 2007-2008 school year comes to an end, it is very encouraging to see the
number of new school
projects on the agenda for the
coming year in South Carolina. This means that we are planning for the future
education of our children.
In Colleton County alone we are planning to build a new elementary school to
replace one that was built in
1938. We will be building a
new high school and converting our existing high school into a large middle
school
along with renovations and repairs to many of our aging
facilities.
Many school districts in the state of South Carolina are in the middle of this
same type of planning. As we enter
into our facilities plan, it is
imperative that we always keep the future of our children in mind.
Our winter conference was held at the Milliken Plant in Spartanburg. For those
of you who could not attend,
you missed two very important
presentations. One on terrorism in our schools and another on property tax
reform. As you are aware these are two very important topics for
every school in the state of SC.
We look forward to seeing all of you this summer.
Kenny Blakeney
SCSPMA President
JIM VICAR
SCSPMA Executive Director
The Executive Board of South Carolina School Plant Management is always
looking for ways to improve
our organization ,in the areas of quality conferences, increasing membership, vendor
support and working
with state level officials to facilitate statewide awareness of facility needs. All members of the Board work
in
our respective districts and while we are committed to our organization, it is challenging to move SCSPMA
forward and to also
perform our district responsibilities. Over the last several years many changes have been
implemented in our organization to
further enhance the overall operation of SCSPMA.
With this in mind, the Executive Board bench marked neighboring state
organizations and analyzed their
organizational
structure so we could align SCSPMA to maximize the organization’s operation. In
all
organizations researched, all had
Executive Directors to manage major components of the operation.
After many hours of deliberation and reviewing SCSPMA future goals and
objectives, the Board made the
decision to appoint
a part time Executive Director to oversee many facets of our operation. The
consensus
of the group was to offer the position to
Jim Vicar. Jim is no stranger to SCSPMA. He served two terms as
president, and
is a charter member of SCSPMA, was the first
president for National School Plant
Management and is currently serving as
treasurer for NSPMA. His extensive background in
facilities and
his networking connections throughout the state and country made
him our obvious choice as a part time
Executive Director. A few examples of Jim’s responsibilities as our Director
will be to solicit vendor
advertisements for the
newsletter, compile a vendor data base, act as liaison to South Carolina
Department
of Education, increase participation from
Superintendents, Assistant Superintendents, Directors, Managers,
Supervisors,
and Procurement/Finance personnel involved
with facility operations, coordinate conference
training classes, and assist the
organization in implementing new means to
increase our membership.
Jim was introduced at the winter conference as our Executive Director and
immediately began organizing
the summer conference.The Executive Director of South Carolina School Plant Management reports
directly to the President. All current members of the
Board feel appointing an Executive Director will
position our organization to
continue an aggressive growth plan moving forward.
Please
join the Board in welcoming Jim into an official role with SCSPMA.
In August of 2007, Richland School District One and SCSPMA
lost a very good and dear friend.
That person was Mrs. Yvonne Coleman.
I have the honor of putting together a few words about her from some of
her friends and co-workers.
Mrs. Coleman came to work for RCSD1 in 1984 as a building supervisor at Lower
Richland High School. She remained
there for a number of years and moved on to become an area supervisor for the
district. After a number of years in that
position she left and returned to Moncrief Army Hospital. After being gone for
a few years she returned to the district as
the training coordinator. That same year, she attended her first meeting at
SCSPMA and was elected to the position of
Vice President and remained in that position for about two years. She remained
a loyal member of SCSPMA and a very
strong voice for the workers of RCSD1. She was the type of person that could
put work in one place and play in another
place with the same people. Everyone acquainted with Yvonne Coleman will miss
her very much.
I, myself, had known Ms. C., which is what I called her, for over 20 years. I
first met her at Moncrief Army Hospital,
where she was a supervisor. She was a super lady to work for and with. When
she said something, you could take it to
the bank, and cash it in. (Delores Palmer)
Below you will find some words that other co-workers have to say about her:
· James Vant has this to say about her-
“When talking about Mrs. Coleman you have to talk about how good she was,
not only as a person, but also her work. She was one of those, “WELL DONE
IS BETTER THAN WELL SAID PERSONS.”
· Jacquence Carl Porter has these words
to say: Mrs. Yvonne Coleman was such a humorous, entertaining, straight forward
and supportive supervisor to be around. She loved working with people and
always provided encouraging words when my
work day did not go as planned. I will miss seeing her in the office.
· If there was ever a more committed
and dedicated person ensuring that the staff and students of Richland One were
taught,
learned, worked and lived in the most appropriate environment, I would not
know who that person would be. Ms. Coleman
exhibited passion for doing things right and doing the right thing. She worked
closely with her colleagues—hand-in-hand and
side-by-side. She continually fought to raise the level of expectations and
therefore, the quality of the outcome. Ms. Coleman
will be missed, as she touched students and staff throughout the district. She
will be remembered as a person of the highest
quality in the Richland One family, one who, in her remembrance, will allow us
to strive for even greater results in our efforts
to ensure that our young people have the very best experience possible in
Richland One. This comes from
Michael Bobby, Chief of Operations Officer, Richland County School
District One.
· Diane Wyatt, Executive Assistant to
the Chief of Operations, Richland One writes these words: In my mind’s eye, I
see Yvonne
with that warm smile on her face as she would come and go in the hallways of our
building. Her disposition was always the same.
During the construction meetings as discussions centered around working
out the cleaning schedule in order to allow students and
staff back into the new/or renovated buildings, Yvonne was never shy in
letting district staff and construction managers know HER
expectations and standards as to what constituted cleanliness. She did
not back down! Yvonne led by example. She was noted
for working along side her staff—not just supervising them. She wasn’t afraid
of hard work or of the long hours it regularly required.
Richland One has lost a loyal, dedicated employee whose shoes it will be
difficult to fill. Yvonne, we miss you!!
· Melvin Henry, Director of Maintenance
has these words to say
about Yvonne: She was knowledgeable, and more importantly,
passionate about her work. There were countless times that her passion to get
the job done right and on
schedule kept her in schools
into the wee hours of the morning. Mrs. Coleman’s motto was …”I’m doing it for
my children!!” My first encounter with Mrs.
Coleman was during the 2nd round of interviews for my present
position almost three (3) years ago. There were more than a
dozen representatives from Maintenance Services in the room and each had a
specific question relating to their particular discipline…
.but not Mrs. Coleman!! When it was her turn to ask questions, she had only
one……
she asked “Mr. Henry…we are here to take care of the children of Richland One;
what exactly are you bringing to the table
to help us?” I don’t remember exactly what I said at that moment, but it
was evidently good enough to pass her scrutiny…
· Phil Corley says: Yvonne Coleman was
a very dedicated and hard working employee for Richland School District One.
She loved her job and performed it with a passion. Many people were influenced
by the way she lived her life. Part of her
legacy was hard work and dedication in the performance of her job. She is
missed by many people.
Many thanks to Delores Palmer for working with
Mike Johnson in obtaining these fond memories of Yvonne Coleman.
Phillip
“Coach” Clark
June 28,
1928-, January 7, 2008
A native of Knoxville, Tennessee, son of the late George W.
and Maude Phillips Clark, Coach Clark was a graduate of Wofford College, where
he was a member of the Wofford College Hall of Fame and the South Carolina
Coaches Association Hall of Fame. He earned a Masters Degree from USC. He was
the head coach in the 1954 North-South All Star game and head coach in the 1954
South Carolina Shrine Bowl Team. The North-South Football All Star game was
dedicated in his honor in 1996 and the new Greer High School Athletic Complex
was named in his honor in 1998. Coach Clark served 27 years at Greer High School
as a coach and athletic director. He was a member of the Memorial United
Methodist Church and a U.S Coast Guard Veteran of World War II.
Seeking School Improvements
Districts throughout South Carolina often are impacted by the lack of funds to
adequately maintain their
facilities. For those of us who work in districts where budgets provide the
opportunity to have preventive
maintenance programs, we struggle to understand why there is no parity in
funding of capital needs from
the state for those districts in the state that are not so fortunate. All
districts in our state have an ambassador
for their needs in Alex James. Alex continues to meet with State Superintendent
Jim Rex to explore
legislation to correct funding deficiencies and encourage state legislators to
properly fund capitol building
projects for all districts. The national average for the age of school buildings
across the country is over
fifty-five years. With all the improvements in technology in recent years and
the academic models
in place for our schools, it is easy to see that our facilities are outdated.
Providing state of the art schools
for America’s children is crucial and statistics show that students who complete
high school are more likely
to succeed in life.
Identifying maintenance departments
SCSPMA decided to identify two maintenance departments in South Carolina that
would benefit from
attending our summer conference. The Executive Board along with Alex James
,will decide which two
departments would benefit the most from attending the conference, networking
with peers and gaining
valuable information to implement in their district.
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