PFAFFTOWN
Frank Martin has always felt connected to Reagan High School.
He and his family live in Pfafftown, and he watched Reagan being built. When the school opened its doors in 2005, he was there as an assistant principal serving with principal Stan Elrod.
After Martin left that job in 2006 to become principal at Jefferson Middle School, he stayed active in the Reagan community as the parent of a student there.
And Martin dreamed of coming back to Reagan as principal.
That dream is now a reality. Elrod retired at the end of June, and, earlier this month, the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Board of Education made Martin principal.
Elrod, for one, is pleased.
"I am very, very happy for the community," he said. "Reagan High School is in really good hands."
Reagan will have three Martins this year. Martin and his wife, Ashlie, have a daughter Katherine, who will be a senior, and son Christian, who will be a freshman.
Christian already had his father as his principal at Jefferson.
"Now, he's following me to high school, too," Christian said.
The Martins' third child, Stuart, will be a fifth-grader at Vienna Elementary School.
Martin, 49, grew up in Stuart in Patrick County, Va. His late father, Harold, was a state trooper.
His mother, Betty, worked as a librarian and a school secretary before becoming the secretary in the sheriff's department 30 years ago. Even though she is past traditional retirement age, she has kept the job because she likes working, Martin said.
He credits his parents for a strong work ethic -- you show up on time, do what you say you're going to do, do your best and, if need be, stay late. Growing up, he mowed yards, worked tobacco and did a short stint on third shift at a wood-processing plant.
Neither of his parents went to college, and they wanted their three children to go. That was fine with Martin, who wasn't interested spending the rest of his life priming tobacco.
At Patrick County High School, he played basketball (guard) and baseball (shortstop) and did well in math. So, as he headed off to Virginia Tech, becoming an accountant seemed like a good idea.
"I found out real quick that I might need to find something else," he said.
Education looked appealing and the choice stuck. He graduated in 1983 planning to teach business courses and coach at the high-school level. He started out doing just that at George Wythe High School in Wytheville, Va. He and Ashlie had met at a beach-music festival while she was a student at Radford University. She had a sister in Winston-Salem and that connection led to a move here and a job at Mount Tabor High School in 1986.
"Part of the deal was I was the assistant soccer coach, and I had never seen a soccer game in my life," Martin said.
After 10 years, he decided it was time to try something new and took a job with Krispy Kreme. He had been there for 1½ years when a round of layoffs led to his being called in, told to clean out his office and to leave the keys with the secretary on his way out. When he called Martha Land, the principal at Mount Tabor, she had no open positions but thought that Elrod, who was principal at Reynolds then, might. He did, and Martin taught at Reynolds before returning to Mount Tabor in 1998.
Deciding that he wanted to go into administration, Martin earned a master's degree in administration from Appalachian State University.
As Martin sees it, Reagan is already a good school with strong community support.
His plan is to follow the advice given him after he was named principal.
"Be yourself. Go after it with your heart."
kunderwood@wsjournal.com
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