One more role at PV's high school
May 15—By Barry Porterfield — bporterfield@pvdemocrat.com
Chad Chronister is adding one more role to his job duties after being named as the next assistant principal at Pauls Valley High School.
For Chronister, it's a natural fit as he's served in one capacity or another at PVHS for right around 30 years now.
His new job comes after Brett Knight was officially moved up to be Pauls Valley's next school superintendent as the replacement for the outgoing Adam McPhail.
"I'm excited to go back to the high school," Chronister said.
"It's home. I came here and have never left. Everything else is my love of that building.
The kicker for Chronister is he will have to do a kind of balancing act as he plans to also continue his work as director of the school's alternative education program and remain the assistant athletic director.
An extra focus on time management might be in order, but Chronister makes it very clear he wants this next challenge as assistant principal.
"When all this went down I reached out to him again and he was receptive to it," Chronister said, referring to high school principal Kirk Moore as the process was well underway for the local school board to interview candidates and hire a new superintendent, which turned out to be Knight.
"I think I will be able to do both," he said about serving as assistant principal, while also overseeing alternative education.
In fact, Chronister plans to borrow something from the alternative side and take it with him a few yards away to the high school.
"There's good people here with a lot of need for motivation and that's what I am — a motivator. We spend a lot of time working on community involvement," Chronister said about the current push for the alternative program.
"We're teaching our kids to have a role in the community. I want the kids at the high school to be a part of what we've been doing over here."
Chronister has a close relationship with the Pauls Valley area. His grandfather was a contractor who helped construct a whole lot of local buildings that are still here today. He has family who graduated from high school in PV, while for him it was not far away.
A Wynnewood graduate in 1990, Chronister started his student teaching four years later at PVHS.
For much of the last three decades, he has taught Oklahoma and U.S. history and government in three classrooms here. He's also coached football, basketball, golf and baseball and just last year stepped in as director of the alternative education program, which is housed directly behind the high school gym.
He does plan to give up his coaching duties, mainly because of the physical toll it takes on him.
"It's getting to where my body wouldn't let me do it anymore. Physically it's getting to the point where I couldn't do it anymore, do it the right way."
Chronister will also continue working with Gary Chaffin, who is the school's athletic director.
A big reason for that is 2025 will see some major milestones for Pauls Valley's athletic history.
"It's a huge year for Panther athletics next year," he said. "Much of the history of this school's athletics has kind of faded away. I've been working to bring some of that back."
As for that history lesson, a meeting was held in April 1899 to organize football games in the area, which included what would be the first year of PV High School and its football program.
Six years earlier Pauls Valley's elementary school was established, which at the time only went up through the fourth grade.
"Next year will be the 125th year of Panther athletics. It will also be the 75th year of Thompson Field.
"There's a lot of history next year. I've been doing a lot of things for that."
