Reporter-News Archives

Tuesday, March 24, 1998

Baird superintendent making a huge leap to Sweetwater

By ROY A. JONES II Regional Editor

SWEETWATER - As the crow flies, Steve Maikell will be moving only about 60 miles after he is named Sweetwater's new superintendent of schools today, but the Dublin native will be making a quantum leap up the educational career ladder.

The 49-year-old educator obviously made a great impression on the Sweetwater school board because after only five years as a superintendent - all of it at Baird, a Class A school district with 450 students - he'll be heading a Class 4A school district with 2,805 students.

From overseeing a single campus he can walk across in a few minutes and see all 75 employees, he'll be overseeing a sprawling district whose 275 employees are spread over six campuses.

From riding herd on a current budget of $2.73 million, he'll be expected to administer one that's currently more than $20 million.

The board doesn't expect Maikell (pronounced "Michael") to take on all that 4A responsibility for a Class A salary so he'll be in for a healthy raise from his present $59,000.

His salary won't be set until he is officially hired today - the board revealed him as its choice late last week - but it's expected to be in the high $70,000s.

"It'll be different, but that's the kind of challenge I like. Tell me I can't do something, and I'll show you how," Maikell said Monday.

"(Retiring Sweetwater Superintendent) David Welch is a very well-respected administrator, and Sweetwater is an outstanding school system. It's going to be a tough act to follow, but if I didn't think I could do it, I wouldn't accept the challenge."

The Sweetwater board has been searching for a new superintendent since October when Welch, 55, informed trustees of his plans to retire at the end of the current school year, his 13th at the helm.

Welch said he has no plans - "except not to leave Sweetwater" - and that's no problem for Maikell.

"We're making plans to be on board there by May 1 so I can pick his brain, and it's nice to know he'll still be around if I need some advice," Maikell said.

Maikell said he plans to submit his resignation to the Baird school board at its next meeting on April 13. He said thought has already been given - by both school boards - to his desire to be present for the graduation of Baird High School seniors, since he's been their superintendent throughout high school.

"One graduation is on Friday night, and the other is on Saturday so we think we can work it out," he said.

"It means a lot to me to see the kids graduate. We've got a terrific bunch of kids here, and I'm going to miss them."

More than 30 people applied for the Sweetwater job, and Maikell said he still wasn't overly optimistic after he was announced as one of the three finalists. Both of the other finalists had been superintendents longer and at larger schools, and one had a doctoral degree.

But after the final interview on March 5, Maikell said he "felt real good." He said he felt 15 years of experience as a teacher and counselor in Austin, one of the largest school districts in the state, counted for as much as actual superintendent's experience.

"They were looking for a team player, and that's how I see myself," he said.

Maikell said he has mixed feelings about leaving Baird.

"The things the board hired me to do, I felt we're done," he said. "They wanted to improve the technology and to get the test scores up, and we've made dramatic improvement in both, so I'll be leaving with my head high." He regrets that a $2.1 million bond issue failed last year but said that played no part in his decision to leave.

'Would you pass up a 4A school?" he asked.

Maikell graduated in 1966 from high school in Dublin, where his mother, Gene, still lives. His father, Loyd, a longtime bakery employee, died in 1989.

Maikell was an all-area, two-way tackle on the Dublin football team that won bi-district his junior year.

He earned a bachelor's degree in industrial technology from Tarleton State University in 1970, then joined the Austin ISD as a teacher. He earned a master's degree in counseling and guidance from Southwest Texas State University in 1978, spending the next eight years as a counselor in Austin and in Round Rock.

Being an administrator never crossed his mind, he said, until 1987 when he accepted a counselor's position at Manor, a 3A school district near Austin, and was asked to be assistant principal. The school board helped him get an emergency administrator's certificate to get him to take the job.

During his year as assistant principal, the principal was dismissed, and he was elevated to the job for the 1988 school year. He found he liked administration, and during the next five years he earned his mid-management and superintendent's certification.

During his fifth year as Manor High School principal, he was named the state's "Administrator of the Year" by Lamar University. He's a 1995 graduate of the prestigious Lamar University Superintendent Academy.

In November 1992, he took his first superintendent's job at Class A Baird.

Maikell and his wife, Linda, have a daughter, Shadna Lee, who teaches elementary school at Bastrop, and an eighth-grade son, Jonathan. Mrs. Maikell, a Texas Tech graduate, commutes to Abilene, where she has been a counselor at Cooper High School for three years.