BENTON — Mike Skelton, an assistant superintendent with the Jonesboro School District, is the new superintendent for the Benton School District. He was officially hired Monday night by the Benton School Board.
Skelton, 45, will replace Jeff Collum, who resigned earlier this year to move to Texas. Assistant superintendent Karla Neathery is serving in the interim in Benton until Skelton takes the reins July 1.
“We are so excited about getting the opportunity to work in such a great school district and community like Benton,” said Skelton, referring to his wife, Jamie, and son, Tyler. “When we were driving down for the board meeting the other night when they were making the decision official, I just told my wife on the way down, ‘I just want to pinch myself because it doesn’t feel real to me that this is actually happening.’”
Skelton credited God for leading him in Benton’s direction.
“The opportunity presented itself,” he said. “I’ve been so blessed over the years, being able to work in some really good school districts, with some of the finest people in the school business. I say that, not just meaning Arkansas, but what I feel are some of the best educators in our region or maybe even in the country, for that matter.”
Skelton has a varied background in education.
For the past seven years, he’s worked in the Jonesboro School District. He was first hired as high school principal for the 2009-10 school year. Prior to arriving in Jonesboro, Skelton was junior high assistant principal and primary school principal for the Paragould School District from 2005-09. He was high school assistant principal at Pocahontas from 2002-05, and from 1993-2002, he was a science and health teacher, as well as a coach, in the West Memphis School District.
“This is just exciting, and I can’t wait,” Skelton said. “I feel like I’ve worked all my life to prepare for an opportunity like this. I was just so fortunate for it to be in such an outstanding community such as Benton, and an outstanding school district.”
Skelton was selected from a pool of at least 15 candidates, said Heath Nix, Benton School Board president.
“We went through quite a few and felt comfortable that all those that we interviewed and the majority that we looked at were more than capable of coming in and being the superintendent,” Nix said. “You go on, looking at the best fit for the school district and the community as a whole, and that is why it took us awhile to really dig in and figure that out.”
Nix said there were a “lot of good superintendents who applied.
“In the end, after interviewing [Skelton] the first time, then talking to him some on the phone and bringing him in for a second interview, we felt like he would be the best fit for this district and the community.”
Nix said Skelton’s varied experience is a plus for Benton.
“He has all kinds of experience and has worked in just about everything you can think of while coming up through the ranks,” Nix said.
Skelton is a 1988 graduate of Kennett High School in Kennett, Missouri. He received a bachelor’s degree from Arkansas State University-Jonesboro in 1992. He also earned a master’s degree and a doctorate from Arkansas State.
Skelton said he will be as proactive as he can be in his position as superintendent at Benton.
“I want to try to be out ahead of the curve instead of playing from behind,” he said. “I try to involve everybody in the process. I’m not an old-school, traditional top-down leadership-style person. I don’t think ‘my way or the highway’ is the way to lead.
“From an administrative standpoint and also a superintendent standpoint, I want to involve our people. That includes everybody. That’s students. That’s parents. That’s community leaders. I would like to have all voices at the table. It’s their school. It’s their money. I want to listen to them and let them have as much influence, and me be just a part of that conversation.”
Skelton said he has his own ideas about how things should operate in the district.
“At the same time, I’m just a voice in that,” he said. “Hopefully, whatever I can do to facilitate that conversation, and it lead to meaningful actions that will allow us to move forward and help our students to be successful — I want to do that.”
Staff writer Mark Buffalo can be reached at (501) 399-3676 or mbuffalo@arkansasonline.com.