Eliason named as new principal for Palouse

Garth Meyer, Gazette Reporter | May 03, 20120

After a day of interviews and a tour of Garfield and Palouse, Darcy Eliason of the Pioneer School District in Shelton was nominated by a search committee to be the new principal at Palouse. The Palouse school board confirmed her as the choice in a meeting Thursday, April 26.

Eliason was among four finalists.

Eliason is an English teacher and administrator designee who served on the Shelton school improvement committee as well as the district planning committee.

“It was a good process, we had a great committee and I think we’ve got an outstanding new principal,” said Supt. Jake Dingman who headed the search committee.

The search committee included counselor Diane Mylett, special education teacher John Bofenkamp, Karen Marcus, English teacher Scott Thompson, parent Terrie Teare, school secretary Vicki Griner, parent Nicole Flansburg, teacher Jayne Oleson, business manager Frankie Swinney and Dingman.

Eliason will start July 1. The principal’s position has been created out of a dual assignment held by Supt. Bev Fox who will retire at the end of the school year. Dingman was hired to fill the superintendent’s post in a joint staffing assignment with Oakesdale.

The Tuesday schedule of meetings featured all four candidates being interviewed by the search committee, as well as the high school ASB officers before a tour of Garfield and Palouse. A community input session followed at a “full library” in Palouse, according to Dingman.

Afterward, the committee discussed what they saw and heard.

“It was a great discussion,” said Dingman. “We had four great candidates and the committee made a decision to recommend Darcy.”

The discussion continued until 10:30 that night.

Eliason, 48, grew up in Olympia and earned a degree in English with a teaching certification from Pacific Lutheran University. She began her career in 1986 in Hacienda Heights, Calif., where she taught two years followed by four years in Claremont, Calif.

She then left teaching to have children and moved to Florence, Texas. After 11 years, she returned to teaching and moved back to Washington to be near family. She has taught in the Pioneer School District for the past seven years.

She said her favorite English curriculum to teach is seventh-grade and tenth-grade because she enjoys introducing “The Outsiders” to seventh graders and “The Great Gatsby” and “Of Mice and Men” to sophomores.

The three other finalists for the principal job were Tim Coles of Garfield-Palouse, Dan Hutton of Tekoa and Edwina Hargrave of the Stevenson-Carson School District.

Another finalist, Jeff Cravy, was hired as a principal in the South Whidbey School District.