County's four new principals prepare for their charges

Four Columbia County schools will have new leaders in 2008-09.

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Don Putnam, previously the principal of Riverside Middle School, will be the first principal of Stallings Island Middle School, which is opening on Blackstone Camp Road in August.

Putnam said he is looking forward to "a successful opening" and "beginning a new tradition."

Chris Segraves, who previously served as an assistant principal at Evans High School, is the new principal of Riverside Middle School.

"I'm looking forward to working with the middle school students. The school has been incredibly successful since it opened up its doors, and I certainly want to continue that," Segraves said.

Judy Holton is coming to Greenbrier Elementary School from Jenkins County Elementary School.

"I am so excited about being a part of the Columbia County school system. A lot of good things are going on. It's very progressive," she said.

Holton said she worked in the Jenkins County system for 22 years.

"She comes with a lot of accolades, and we're going to put a lot of responsibility on her to live up to them," Superintendent Charles Nagle said of Holton at a July 22 luncheon for new teachers.

Holton is taking the reins from Michele Sherman, who became the school system's director of elementary student learning in July. Sherman replaced Phyllis Means, who retired after a 40-year career in education.

Even though Grovetown High School will not open on Chamblin Road until August 2009, its first principal, Penny Jackson, already is hard at work. Jackson, an assistant principal at Greenbrier High School, will serve in dual capacities during the first semester.

She will move to the school system's central office on Hereford Farm Road and take the Grovetown High job full time in January.

She said she hopes to hire an athletic director in November and plans to start hiring teachers in January.

She also plans to complete the image of the school's warrior mascot, and she is setting up a school council made up of two students from each of the six schools -- three middle and three high schools -- that will feed into Grovetown.

Nagle praised all of Columbia County's principals at the luncheon.

"There is no tougher job in a school system than a principal of a school," he said.