After 11 years, Allen Blackwell has left his position as superintendent of the Gurdon Public Schools and will take the same role for the Rose Bud School District, beginning July 1, in order to be closer to his family.
“We have family that live in Rose Bud,” Blackwell said. “My daughter, Kelsey Prothro, and son-in-law, Zach, live there. Rose Bud is his hometown. And three of my grandbabies live there.”
Blackwell also said his son, Ryan, is a teacher in Bradley.
“We don’t get to see any of them enough, so when the opportunity came up to see them more than once every couple of weeks, we took the chance, and luckily, we got the opportunity to go,” Blackwell said.
The first teaching job Blackwell ever had was at Gurdon, where he taught for six years. Eric Hughes was in the 10th grade when Blackwell first started teaching.
“He did a good job with Gurdon,” Hughes said. “He’s a great person and was very involved with the students.
“He cares about the students, even after they graduate. He is just an outstanding human being.”
Hughes, who is now a lawyer at Hughes & Hughes Law Firm in Arkadelphia, graduated from Gurdon in 1987.
“Allen was an agri teacher and the FFA adviser,” Hughes said. “The program at Gurdon was barely existent when Allen arrived, and by the time I graduated, it was one of the largest programs in the state.
“It was just a remarkable turnaround. He built that program up at Gurdon to be an outstanding program. A lot of people around Clark County learned leadership qualities through that program and have gone on to be very successful.”
Hughes said a lot of it can be contributed to Blackwell and his encouragement.
“He utilized that program to develop leadership qualities in his students,” Hughes said. “He was the best teacher I ever had. I know he has gone on to be principal and superintendent at multiple stops, and from what I understand, he has done an excellent job.”
Blackwell is originally from Hatfield, a small town south of Mena. He graduated from high school in 1980 and earned a bachelor’s degree from Southern Arkansas University in Magnolia in 1984. He received his administration license for principal through Henderson State University in 1988 and his educational leadership, or superintendent license, in 2008.
Blackwell taught at Gurdon from 1984 to 1990 and left for Fayetteville because he thought he wanted to teach college.
“I was on a teaching assistantship in 1990, getting ready to start on a doctorate, and I was teaching some of those freshman-level classes,” Blackwell said. “I learned I really enjoyed high school classes, so after I finished my master’s, I moved to Magnolia and taught there for a few years.”
After Magnolia, he moved to Bismarck for years, eventually moving into administration. However, when the Gurdon superintendent retired in 2009, Blackwell made the move back.
“Gurdon is where I met my wife, where we got married,” Blackwell said. “Gurdon had the hometown feel, so when we had the chance to come back, it was something natural for us.
“We picked up where we left off in the 1990s, and now it’s more about trying to get closer to family.”
Blackwell said he was inspired to become a teacher because when he was in high school, he had an agriculture teacher, Ronnie Puckett, who made an impact on his life.
“He had just graduated from SAU, and it was my eighth-grade year,” Blackwell said. “He motivated me enough to want to go to college.
“I would say he had a large impact on my life. … He had a large influence on my life. He was a very good man.”
In 11 years, Blackwell said, he believes the Gurdon School District has accomplished quite a bit.
“Seniors can receive up to 30 hours of college credit for free, thanks to a partnership with SAU,” Blackwell said. “Another thing we have been able to accomplish is our 1-on-1 technology that started in 2009 or 2010.
“Students all the way down to fourth grade have access to a laptop or a chrome book. We also have a simulator program for our agriculture department. Because we are a logging community, we are trying to get students to stay here and make a good living.”
Blackwell said the district purchased two simulators from Caterpillar, much like how Henderson State has simulators to learn how to fly a plane.
“We have simulators on how to load logs on the truck and cut trees with a tree cutter,” he said. “When they finish the class, they will earn a certificate that shows they are comfortable working a half-million-dollar piece of equipment. … We want our kids to stay and be able to have a good trade when they graduate. That is one thing we have been successful in doing.”
Blackwell said making the transition to Rose Bud should be pretty seamless.
“Gurdon and Rose Bud are similar in size, with Rose Bud being a little bigger,” Blackwell said. “The school is the main component of the community, and for the past five years that our daughter has lived there, we have visited the community, which has some great activities. They have a Summer Fest that is really neat and an Easter Egg Hunt on the school property for the community.
“Basically, we have gotten to know some people there and made some connections through my daughter’s church. It makes the move much easier.”
Blackwell said that from an outside perspective, the district’s facilities and finances are in good shape, but there is some work to be done academically.
“The biggest thing I would say is that we probably need to work on the fleets and the transportation department because they have quite a few old buses,” Blackwell said.
Right now, in his final months as superintendent at Gurdon, Blackwell has been assisting the district in its efforts over the concerns of the coronavirus.
“We are doing the AMI, and some teachers have Google classrooms set up,” he said.
“We are a very rural school district, and not everyone has internet connections, so we have developed some packets for those students.”
He said his staff is also preparing to do videos using Zoom and Google.
“Our teachers will be doing video lessons instead of coming back to school,” Blackwell said. “Our administrators will be doing Zoom meetings with teachers and will continue with instruction, not just packets.”
He also said his bus drivers are delivering lunches to students in the district.
“Yesterday, we fed 517 out of 685 students, taking the food directly to our kids,” Blackwell said. “We have gotten a huge response from our community, but I give all the credit to our cafeteria workers and bus drivers — everybody coming together to get these kids fed.
“It has been very inspiring to see, and the appreciation from our kids and parents.”
He said delivering the food by bus is probably the best option because otherwise, the district might not have fed 100 people. Plus, it allowed Blackwell to still pay his bus drivers and cafeteria people.
“The second part of my job is taking care of my employees, and this is a good way to do it,” Blackwell said.
Staff writer Sam Pierce can be reached at (501) 244-4314 or spierce@arkansasonline.com.