Randy Hodges entered the public eye on the courts of West Lauderdale High School, dribbling, passing and racing with his teammates. 

He’d help the team win three state championships before graduating in 1967 to play basketball at Mississippi State University.

This summer, Hodges’s 44-year career in education is ending, and he’s trading his office at the Lauderdale County School District for a quiet life on his Collinsville farm.

Though, technically, Hodges won’t retire as superintendent until the end of the June, the district will host a retirement party from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Thursday, May 24 at the Kahlmus Auditorium at MSU-Meridian, which Hodges said marks the true end of his career. 

“When the kids go home on that last day … that responsiblity of 6,400 students is no longer there,” Hodges said. 

‘A natural process’ 

Hodges’ success on the basketball court marked the beginning of what he called “a natural process” to education.

After college, Hodges coached around the state for 14 years before returning to Lauderdale County as the principal of West Lauderdale Middle School in 1986.

Within a year, Hodges decided to run for superintendent, an office that until recently was an elected postion. Now, the school board will appoint someone to the position for the first time. 

“I realized what a difference a person at the top can make,” Hodges said. “In all of the children’s lives in the district. And I was fortunate to come back to the district where I graduated.” 

Ed Mosley has worked with Hodges since the late 1980s and has served as assistant superintendent since 1993. 

“He’s a good, decisive leader and fair,” Mosley said. “He only wants to do what’s right.”

Mosley said that he graduated only a few years behind Hodges, in 1971 from Northeast High School.

“We’re family,” Mosley said. “If you’re part of the Lauderdale County School District it makes you family.”

Equal opportunities 

Hodges stressed the importance of public education as a way to provide equal opportunities to students, no matter their background. 

“We teach all of the children, those in need and the gifted or talented,” Hodges said. 

Hodges said that as a rural district, with a smaller tax base, the district had managed to survive reduced resources and decreasing budgets of the last decade while still providing for four community schools.

“And we still perform as one of the top schools in the state,” Hodges said. 

Changing with the times

Over the years, other changes have come to the district, including online state testing, new technologies and social media.

One of the earliest changes, the implementation of mandatory kindergarten by former governor William Winter, had one of the biggest effects on the quality of education. 

“I think that made the biggest difference of anything I’ve seen,” Hodges said. “If we could take the next step (with pre-kindergarten), we would see the same kind of difference.”

Hodges said the district was one of the first to implement online testing and upgrade its technology, acclimating students to the new form as quickly as possible. 

“I think we’ve done an excellent job staying up with the technological needs of the district,” Hodges said. “It’s an area that you must be up-to-date on or you’re falling behind.”

School safety

During the last 10 years as superintendent, Hodges has led the district even as the country reeled following the shooting deaths in Newtown, Connecticut in 2012 and in Parkland, Florida earlier this year.

Both of the events left Hodges with a greater sense of duty to the children he oversaw.

“Our number one priority must and should be school safety,” Hodges said. “Yes, we’re expected to prepare children for the future, but we must keep them safe. It’s more and more important.”

In particular, Hodges took to heart the words of students from Parkland, “Adults let us down. They failed us.”

“That really bothered me, that students felt that way,” he said. “Maybe we should have passed laws or banned weapons… Maybe we did fail them. Looking at the shootings we’ve seen, maybe we did let them down.”

Hodges has made statements he admits are “debateable” in the past year from comments about President Trump to school safety. 

He said as an educator, one hopes society would improve, which was why Lauderdale County schools did presentations on saying no to drugs, abstaining from alcohol and not texting and driving. 

“Even now in our state and community, and I really want to stress our state, because it’s everywhere,” Hodges said. “There’s way too much violence and crime. Especially among young people… We’ve got to all get our heads together and be determined to make it better.” 

On leadership, and looking ahead

Hodges reflected on how leadership, from the president to Congress to school administrators, affected everybody in the community. 

“I think it’s more important now that we get the right and good people in positions because of what we’re faced with,” Hodges said. “What I believe is that we’ve got to do better.”

Hodges stressed school safety as a priority for an incoming administrator but said he felt good about where the district would be. 

Tim Moore, the Northeast High School principal, agreed.

“Whoever gains that position, it’s been left in good shape because of Mr. Hodges… It’s in a good spot, a good position on which to build upon,” Moore said. “I think one thing that stands out about Lauderdale County is all of the progress that we’ve made.”

Moore stressed that he felt grateful for the opportunity to learn from  Hodges and utilize his “depth of knowledge.” 

“I think from that perspective, whoever gets the position is going to have a good foundation,” Moore said. “I’ve very grateful to have the opportunity he’s given me to work.”

“We just need a leader who’s compassionate,” said Mosley, the assistant superintendent. “And do a lot of listening and observing. I trust the board to make the right choice.”

“They will be surrounded by talent,” Hodges said. “It’s there. It’s real. And it made a different but you have to give them an opportunity to perform.”

More family time

As for retirement, Hodges said he plans to ride his horses, spend time with family and travel out west to visit his daughter in Montana. 

“My wife and I, we’ve been career-oriented all of our lives,” Hodges said. “Now is the time to travel and do the things we’ve always desired to do.” 

Thinking of his wife, Delaine, and two daughters, Hodges acknowledges all of the support his family had given him over the last decades of his career. 

“It didn’t matter if it was coaching a ball game all over the state or as superintendent,” Hodges said. “I want to stress how much I appreciate my wife and family being supportive of this man’s career.”

After 44 years, Hodges will no longer have to wake up early on stormy mornings and make the decision to cancel school or delay buses.

Instead, he’ll be spending his time on other pursuits. 

“I’m at a point now that I want to enjoy life and spend time with my wife, children and grandchildren,” Hodges said. “When I look back on it, how challenging moving forward has been… We have high-quality people. That’s the only formula for success: high-quality people.

Hodges acknowledged the work of everyone in the district: bus drivers, custodians, his staff at the central office, administrators and teachers and their part in making the district all these years.

“We all have a job to do and a role to play. Everybody has to do their part,” Hodges said. “I feel better about that than anything else.”