Beebe School District Superintendent Belinda Shook has decided it’s time to call it a career.
After 32 years in education, including the past 13 as superintendent of her hometown school district, Shook plans to retire June 30.
“I’ve been thinking about it the past few years,” Shook said. “A couple of years when I was thinking about it, I let the school board add another year to my contract because I had a three-year contract. So, eventually, I just said there has to be a time when you say, ‘OK, I’m going to quit.’ Otherwise, you just keep adding a year, adding a year.
“So I just decided to let my contract run out. So when my contract ran out, it was time to retire.”
Shook, 58, will be replaced by current Rose Bud Superintendent Chris Nail, who was hired by the Beebe district earlier this month.
“I have grandchildren,” Shook said. “It’s just important to me to spend a lot of time with my grandchildren while I’m able to get out and around. I have other family members who need some attention, need some help. It just seemed liked a good time.”
Shook is a 1977 graduate of Beebe High School. She earned an associate degree from Arkansas State University-Beebe in 1979. She took a few years off from college and worked in the private sector before completing a bachelor’s degree at the University of Central Arkansas in Conway in 1985.
Shook received a master’s degree in 1988 and an Education Specialist degree from UCA in 1990. She eventually received her doctorate from what was then Memphis State University in 1993.
Shook started her teaching career in McRae, working there six years, first as a fifth-grade teacher, then teaching gifted and talented education before becoming a principal.
Shook made the move back to Beebe as elementary principal in 1992. She was a principal for 10 years before becoming assistant superintendent to Kieth Williams. She served in that capacity for five years, then became superintendent when Williams left Beebe.
Shook said she’s proud of the amount of improvements the district has made to facilities during her tenure, while not taking up a lot of debt in the process.
“One thing that I’m extremely proud of is that we have constructed $30 million worth of facilities in our district, and our debt has only increased by $4.5 million because of grants and partnership funds and things like that we’ve applied for,” Shook said. “We have not asked for a millage [increase]. That is something I’m really proud of, that we’ve improved our facilities so much and not had to increase our debt.”
Shook said it took some doing to make that happen.
“We’ve had a lot of things come along in the 13 years I’ve been superintendent,” she said. “We got some stimulus money, extended some bonds, done some second-lien bonds. But overall, when I leave, our debt will only increase by $4.5 million, and we have $30 million in new buildings.”
Shook said she also negotiated a $9 million contract with Clearwire Corp. to use the instructional television channels in the district over a 30-year period.
“That has really helped a lot,” she said.
During her education career in Beebe, Shook has seen two fires and a tornado destroy parts of the campuses.
“I was principal when we had the fires, and my sister-in-law was the other principal, right across the hall from me,” Shook said, referring to Deanna Shook, who was the Beebe Primary School principal.
“We sort of worked together and teamed up,” Belinda Shook said. “We basically put our two staffs together and did that. We had to put two teachers in the classroom and just use our facilities to the fullest extent because so many of [the classrooms] had been damaged.”
Also during her career, Beebe annexed the McRae School District.
“The community has always been supportive of the school district,” Shook said. “We annexed McRae. My first year as superintendent was the first year that we bused elementary students to McRae, where we had an elementary school. We made it into a middle school. I really thought that was going to be a challenge, but the way the communities worked together, it was a really smooth transition.
“I hear horror stories across the state about school districts joining. I just think that says something for our communities, that they value education.”
Shook said keeping a school in McRae was important for the district and the communities.
“I think it was important, and it was also important to Beebe because we could use the additional space,” she said. “It’s been a win-win for both communities. Now, we’ve built a new middle school building there. We have a storm shelter in the community. I think it’s been a really good thing for both communities.”
Shook said one thing she is going to miss is not being able to interact with the students in Beebe.
“The main thing I’ll miss, the real reward of working in the school, is to see your students succeed,” she said. “Regardless of who was working directly with them, you sort of get to feel that as a superintendent. I will miss visiting with the students and getting to see what they do and how they make choices to continue their education.”
Shook said she recently toured the high school building.
“It’s amazing to me to see the opportunities that our students now have,” she said. “People can say what they want to, but students are learning more than they have ever learned — just the career and technical opportunities, the Advanced Placement courses — we have high school students who are just amazing. Their presentation skills, the opportunities they have in math and science and broadcasting, medical professions … it’s amazing the choices they have.”
Harold Davis, president of the Beebe School Board, said the board tried to talk Shook out of retiring.
“We tried to talk her out of it,” he said. “This is my third superintendent. I was actually at McRae then Beebe annexed it, and I stayed on the board. We hired Dr. Shook.
“She’s been so good. She had a vision and never faltered from that vision. She’s been great.”
In addition to the education profession, Shook and her husband, Larry Shook, are the 2017 White County Farm Family of the Year.
“We farm 2,000 acres, mostly hay,” Belinda Shook said. “We grow hay for a lot of feed stores, the Little Rock Zoo, Oaklawn. We sell a lot of hay across the state.”
Shook said the couple also grow soybeans and corn.
“We have some wheat because we also sell wheat straw,” she said, “but we’re mostly just a hay farm.”
Shook said her husband started the farm in 1980, and they were married in 1982.
“He’s been in a farm family his whole life,” Shook said. “He grew up with chicken houses and row-crop farming. I actually lived on a small farm outside of Beebe.”
Staff writer Mark Buffalo can be reached at (501) 399-3676 or mbuffalo@arkansasonline.com.