Fannin County Middle School Principal Keith Nuckolls will be leaving the Fannin County School System at the end of March to pursue a full-time pastoral position in his hometown of Hayesville, North Carolina.
“I’ve been a bivocational pastor for nearly 26 years, and this is truly the first time the door just opened so that I could step in to do this,” Nuckolls said. “This one is wide open, and its not hard to see that it’s time to take the step.”
While he’s excited to start his new journey, he describes it as “bittersweet,” because it will be hard to leave a school where the faculty, staff and students feel like family. He said, “While I’m excited about fulfilling that ministerial opportunity for my family, I've got to leave here, and I’m not trying to run from my job. I’m just trying to do what I think is right. I just have to leave here to do that. It’s a beautiful community, and the people are my kind of people. They’re just practical, matter of fact, down to earth, ‘I’ll tell you what I feel,’ and, gosh, that’s my kind of people. This faculty is more than special. They’ve truly become a beloved group of people in my heart.”
Prior to coming to Fannin, Nuckolls came out of retirement to fill a principal role
in North Carolina. While he was supposed to be there for only a few weeks, he ended up staying the whole year. Following this, he applied to become Fannin Middle’s principal in 2016, and he’s been here ever since.
“School’s all about students,” he said. “If you do an education job, you have to appreciate and love the students. They are the centerpiece.”
Assistant Principal Mark Young said Nuckolls has a “gift,” stating, “He compels those around him to experience a feeling of importance and inspiration. His positive attitude is contagious, his humor is infectious and most importantly, he has a heart for our most valued assets, people, both young and old. It will take an equally dynamic person to lead our school on this journey. He will be missed!”
Nuckolls will leave the system with the feeling that he’s accomplished his goals here.
“I feel like we’ve accomplished a lot of things here with our leadership, the district leadership and the faculty,” he said. “We’ve had a common goal, and I think we’ve accomplished what we wanted to accomplish here. I hope it’s pleasing to the district.”
He hopes the middle school’s next principal will be different than himself.
“There are a lot of things that I think someone else could do better than I,” he said. “I wish that’s what they would look for. Find out what my weakness is and see if you can improve on that weakness. Find out what my strengths are and see if you kind find somebody that just can carry on. So, you want to try to evolve and improve the school.”
Nuckolls leaves with one piece of advice for those in the community who raise or work with children. He said, “Raise children in a holy and Godly way. Put the highest of expectations on them, and make them prove. Don’t do it for them. Make them prove themselves, and they’ll always rise to your expectations.”