MORRILTON — Shawn Halbrook is not only superintendent of the South Conway County School District; he’s the Earle Love Business Leader of the Year.
Halbrook was presented the award Monday night at the Morrilton Area Chamber of Commerce banquet. The other awards are announced ahead of time; the one Halbrook won is traditionally a surprise.
“Absolutely — a big surprise,” Halbrook said.
The 44-year-old Morrilton native said he is “a very undeserving person” of the honor.
Chamber CEO Jerry Smith disagreed.
“I think he was a very good choice. I think he exudes a really positive force in the school system and in the community; people believe in him. He has led the community in taxing itself to improve the schools. He was the face of that whole issue. There’s just no question about his integrity, and especially for what the Earle Love [award] is about, which is high integrity.”
The late Earle Love was president and one of the owners of Sound-Craft Systems on Petit Jean Mountain. He and family members were killed in 1991 in a plane crash.
Halbrook is a member of the Morrilton Area Chamber of Commerce Board of Trustees, but he said a separate committee votes on the Earle Love Business Leader of the Year, so he didn’t have a clue he’d won.
“This award is not for Shawn Halbrook. To me, this award is really an award for the South Conway County School District team,” Halbrook said. “What this award means — it means people are recognizing what we’re doing in the South Conway County School District. People recognize we’re trying to be a district of excellence and that we are bound by our purpose — to love, to serve, to care for students in our community.”
As the district’s superintendent, Halbrook is overseeing a $24 million construction project on the Morrilton campuses. Patrons in the school district overwhelmingly approved a 3.9-mill increase in the September 2015 school election for the project.
“We started last spring, and we are in the middle of it right now. Every campus in our district has construction going on. It’s a tremendous gift from our community, and that’s how we’re treating it,” Halbrook said. “Let’s do it right, and let’s be good stewards.”
The project includes three tornado safe rooms, and the one at Morrilton Elementary School should be completed this month, Halbrook said. “Every child in our school district will have access to a tornado safe room,” he said.
Safety was also the issue in reconstructing the primary-
school campus, Halbrook said. Every 1957 building was torn down, and a preschool is being built. The original buildings had open-air corridors with doors that opened inside to the classrooms.
“Everything will be enclosed, and the kids will never walk outside unless they go outside for recess,” he said. “The kindergarten is enclosed, but they had to walk outside to go to the library, cafeteria and physical education. We’re really proud of that, especially for the safety of our children.”
Secure entrances have been completed at the junior high and intermediate schools, Halbrook said. “You can’t get through till they clear you and buzz you in. Prior to that, you had to walk through the hallways to get to the office, which was an unsafe environment for our students and staff.”
An $11.5 million multipurpose, 2,300-seat arena is being built at the high school and will be used for graduation, assemblies, sporting and community events. It will also include a safe room.
“It’s a tremendous investment,” Halbrook said.
All the projects are set to be completed by spring 2018, the superintendent said.
Halbrook, a son of Arlene Halbrook of Morrilton and the late Gary Halbrook, said his mother worked for the South Conway County School
District as a paraprofessional.
Education wasn’t Halbrook’s
first choice, though.
Halbrook said that when he started attending Arkansas Tech University in Russellville, he resisted going into
education.
“I initially went in and was wanting to be a physical therapist, then an economist,” but he gave in to what he said was meant to be.
“It was a calling from God, much like a preacher is called,” he said in an earlier interview. “I tried to fight it, but I couldn’t fight it long.”
His first job was in Harrison
as a football coach and history teacher, and he spent four years there before he went to the Clarksville School District for 11 months, also as a teacher and coach. Halbrook came back to Morrilton and was assistant principal at Northside Elementary School, which became the primary school, then served as principal at Morrilton Junior High School for two years.
From 2007-2010, he was director of learning services in the South Conway County School District; then he went back to Harrison as assistant superintendent and spent three years there until he was hired in 2013 as superintendent back in his hometown.
Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.