Beam Retires; Lynne Bostic Chosen as New Pocahontas School Superintendent

At a special meeting of the Pocahontas County BOE on May 30, 2023, the members accepted the resignation of School Superintendent Terrence Beam, effective June 30 2023.  The board then hired Lynne Bostic, the current Director of Curriculum, as the new Superintendent, offering her a four-year contract.

The following is an interview we did with Beam, who has accepted a job as the School Superintendent in Nicholas County.

“Good morning, Tim,” said Beam. “I come to you today with an announcement I would like to make. I am announcing my resignation as of June 30^th of this year. I’ve been in Pocahontas County for 14 years now. I came here to work in Hillsboro in August of 2009 when they couldn’t find a principal to take over that job. I was asked to come in for just a few weeks to get the school started at Hillsboro, then I could go back to my retirement at home. Well, that was 14 years ago!”

“I’ve totally enjoyed my 14 years here, but it is time for me to resign and move on to another challenge. There is an old saying that it is better to leave a year early than a year late, and I think that’s true. I think I’ve done some good things here in this county, and I think I’ve gained some respect from some people in this county, but it’s time for the county to seek new leadership. And, I am totally at peace with that. People have been so good to me, I’ve worked with a lot of good principals and I loved working with our students, getting to know them.”

What are you most proud of since you’ve been here?

“I think in the job of Superintendent, it is extremely important that people trust you, and I think that over time, I have gained the trust of the majority of our people in our county. I think when I say something, or I write something in the paper, that people believe that’s pretty well true. I think that people have come to know, and I know our employees have, that when I tell them something is going to happen a certain way, it happens just that way. I put a lot of credence into my word.”

Is there anything that you would have liked to have accomplished that you didn’t get done?

“Yeah, we tried to run two levies while I was here, and I know that’s a controversial topic, and that’s OK, but we really needed to supplement our system with some things that we are not able to provide to our students and our community if we had passed a levy. Yeah, we are funded for 1400 kids, so we have been able to keep all of our personnel hired, but anything above and beyond that (which) we would like to do, there is simply not the money to do those things. Like, for example, we would love to put officers in our high school and our middle schools to help protect our students better, and just the month or the day-to-day behavior of our students -the vaping, or the fighting that goes on, or the threats that happen. And, we’ve not been able to do that. That’s one of the things I wish we could have done. I wish we could have supplemented out athletic programs a little bit better and provided for those kids a little bit more. But, not passing a levy was a disappointment. And, it wasn’t just about building new schools, levies provide you a lot of services that we don’t have, and someday, hopefully that will come down the road. I think you are going to see that as our enrollment continues to drop, you are going to have a harder and harder time staffing our schools, and staying solvent financially with less students, less income, and still trying to provide all the things we do now with five schools.”

How do you see the future of our school system?

“I am concerned about the future of Pocahontas County Schools. In the year 2000, we had over 1800 students in Pocahontas County, now 23 years later, we have about half of that, but we still have about the same amount of personnel now that we did then. People want real small classrooms. They want one-to-one instruction in as many cases as they can, or really small numbers. Well, that’s a two-fold problem. First of all, financing of those positions is tough, but second of all, finding certified people to fill those jobs is another major problem. We’ve had jobs open this year that we’ve never been able to fill. We have had to use substitutes who are not trained to teach those subjects. But, that’s the reality of what all schools in West Virginia are facing -certified teachers, we don’t have them. We can’t even fill our service positions, and I see that as continuing to be a problem.”

“I am excited about some things too. Green Bank is now going to have a Principal and an Assistant Principal. I am very excited about both of those ladies going into those jobs. They are going in with a lot of enthusiasm and a lot of hope. There is some good things going on. It is just time for me to transition on to somewhere else, and I am not going to be one of these Superintendents who leaves Pocahontas County, and never comes back. You are going to see me. I don’t care if I do have another job. I am going to come from time-to-time and come to a ball game, or come to the Roadkill Festival, or Pioneer Days, or whatever it happens to be, because it has meant too much to me and people have been too good to me. I am not leaving bitter, I am leaving bitter-sweet, because I kind of wished I could have finished my career here, but there is another challenge out there that needs my help, and I am going to try to help.”

“Now, I hope people will say ‘He did a good job, he was OK, he wasn’t a bad guy’”

We wish Mr. Beam the best in his new position.