Dr. Steve Epperson will serve as Uni High's interim director/principal through the spring of 2009. But how many students know much about him? Gargoyle senior editor Andrea Park decided to profile the man whose Uni roots go back more than 20 years.

I MET DR. Steve Epperson in his office, a small nook accessible only through the main office. The room itself was arranged tidily, but dust particles, inherent to any Uni room, danced in the bright, mid-morning light that streamed through the windows.

My previous impressions of Uni's interim director/principal — who was hired in August to replace former Uni head Kassie Patton — came from seeing him briefly in the hallways during lunch, where he can often be found greeting students with a smile, raise of a hand, and nod of the head. But I had never had a conversation with him.

However, his assurance that he loved talking to students along with his composed, comfortable manner quickly made it clear that he was an approachable fellow.

Furthermore, it was apparent from Epperson’s thoughtful answers that he will be an excellent person to lead Uni through this transitional period.

The First Time Around

This will be Epperson’s second stint at Uni High. The first time Epperson stepped into the chaotic Uni hallways was in August 1987, when he arrived to teach subfreshman algebra and freshman geometry. Epperson was immediately smitten with the Uni way of life.

“It was the first time in my whole career I had the chance to talk to other math teachers to see how they do things and how I can do things better,” Epperson reflected. “In my previous teaching assignment I was teaching six preparations a day. You were just kind of surviving. At Uni it was a much more satisfying type of experience, and I just wanted to keep getting better!”

Epperson chose to leave that previous teaching position, in LeRoy, for two big reasons. The first was Uni’s reputation as an excellent school. The second was Epperson’s plan to get a doctorate in educational administration at the University of Illinois.

“It was a lot easier getting [my doctorate] being right here on campus,” he said.

At Uni, Epperson grew tremendously as a teacher.

“My teaching style became much more discovery oriented,” Epperson explained. “Of course I had good students, too. It was important that my students were developing their own concepts instead of me telling them, for example, a line is ‘y=mx+b.’”

Assistant Director Sue Kovacs remembers Epperson as an excellent teacher who had a good rapport with students and parents alike. Though Kovacs did not work at Uni at the time, her daughter, Stephanie, was a student here.

“Even though Stephie never had him, I can’t remember a single bad word said about him,” Kovacs recalled.

Sports Enthusiast

During Epperson’s first few years at Uni, PE department head Sally Walker was in the process of revamping the fitness program.

“The students didn’t like it very well,” Epperson explained. “In order to encourage students to run and be a part of the fitness program, I started running with the subbies during their PE classes.”

Steve Epperson after finishing the 1999 Chicago Marathon.
Photo courtesy of Steve Epperson (click to enlarge)

He has been running ever since, even completing the Chicago Marathon.

“It helps me stay in shape and I enjoy it now,” said Epperson, who regularly runs on the creaking Kenney Gym track during fifth period.

Epperson is not only a devoted runner but a fan of athletics in general. He has garnered a certain degree of fame among Uni faculty as an avid baseball enthusiast.

“I love baseball,” he gushed. “I played it for many, many years. I always liked the subtleties of the game. It’s not a rah-rah sport like football and basketball.”

In fact, many of the memories Epperson’s colleagues have of him in his early years involve something baseball-related.

“He was really into baseball,” history teacher Chris Butler recounted. “He collects baseball cards. So one day he brought in his set of baseball cards from 1961, which was the year when I collected a lot of them. He was a real good baseball fan — a real good guy.”

Runelle Shriver, Uni High’s library technical specialist, remembers the light-hearted baseball rivalry that developed between Epperson and Butler.

“Mr. Butler was a Chicago Cubs fan, and [Epperson] gave Chris a St. Louis Cardinals cap,” Shriver remembered. “Chris gave me the hat because I am a Cardinals fan. They used to tease each other back and forth. Laid-back teasing, you know.”

In fact, Epperson loves baseball so much that he and his wife, Debbie, their four children — Kim, Teri, Rob, and Steph — and their five grandchildren make a yearly trip up to Cooperstown, N.Y., where the National Baseball Hall of Fame is located.

“It’s become a family deal,” Epperson explained. “We go to Cooperstown to watch the induction ceremony every year. I love watching the players come in. We’ve been going to that now for 23 years.”

In fact, Epperson was driving back from Cooperstown this past August when the U of I contacted him about joining the Uni administration on an interim basis. But that's jumping ahead in the story.

Fine arts department head Rick Murphy also remembers Epperson’s interest in athletics.

“One of my great memories is when Uni High played against his son’s team [in basketball],” said Murphy. “His son was really good, so I told him that I was rooting for his son, but I was rooting for Uni High to win.”

The Background

First-rate basketball skills must run in the Epperson blood. Just like his son, Epperson is a good basketball player, having played at the collegiate level.

After graduating from LeRoy High School in 1970, Epperson went on to play basketball at Eureka College, a small liberal arts school near Peoria.

“I thought I was a basketball player,” Epperson remarked, sounding a little embarrassed.

Though Epperson may be humble about his basketball skills, Murphy was impressed with what he saw.

Epperson and his wife, Debbie, at a St. Louis Cardinals game.
Photo courtesy of Steve Epperson (click to enlarge)

“He was a good shot at basketball, but he used the wrong hand,” joked Murphy, who coaches the subfreshman boys team. “Yeah, he’s left-handed.”

After playing varsity ball for three years, Epperson graduated a year early from Eureka in 1974 with a bachelor's degree in mathematics. By August 1975, he was teaching at LeRoy High School.

Epperson admits that there were pros and cons to teaching at his alma mater.

“I knew many of the students and their families, which helped me gain their support,” Epperson said. “On the other hand, when things did not go well, I think I took things a little more personally since the people I was working with were people I had known for many years.”

However, Epperson soon realized that he wanted to further his knowledge about education, so he went to Illinois State to complete a master's degree in educational administration while still teaching at LeRoy.

After receiving his master's in 1985, Epperson continued to teach at LeRoy before coming to Uni in 1987. While at Uni, Epperson began working on his next degree.

“I came over to Uni and got my course work done for my doctorate,” he said.

However, by the time he left Uni to become principal at Tremont High School, he still had his dissertation to write.

“One of the best things my adviser said when I left and took a job as a high school principal was, ‘You know 90 percent of those who leave campus never finish their dissertation.’ So I was determined that I was going to be in that other 10 percent.”

Epperson did end up receiving his doctorate in 1993 after writing a 120-page dissertation, "The Participation of Black Students in Programs for the Gifted and Talented: A Case Study."

But again, we're getting ahead of ourselves in this story. Back to Epperson and his initial go-round at Uni, which lasted from 1987 to 1991.

During that time, Epperson began to seriously consider moving to the administrative side of things.

“I knew I was interested in the work, but it was also hard for me to get away from the classroom,” he said.

His first year at Uni, Epperson taught a full load of four classes. Then, serendipitously, Uni Director Russell Ames received a large grant that took a good portion of his time away from school. As a result, Epperson was given the opportunity to try his hand at the work by helping out here and there.

The following two years Epperson began transitioning to a more administrative position and thus dropped one of his classes.

By 1990-91, Epperson's fourth year at Uni, Ames resigned and Epperson was asked to serve as the new director on an interim basis.

“My first administrative job — quite a learning experience,” Epperson said. “But those [three previous] years were a really great transition for me. I could get my foot in the door for administrative work, but then I could still teach math.”

In July 1991, Epperson left Uni to take the Tremont job.

"I did not have my doctorate at this time; for this reason I did not apply for the permanent position," Epperson said of his decision to leave Uni.

He stayed at Tremont until the spring of 1994. He then worked as superintendent of the Tri-Valley School District from 1994 to 2001 and then the Roselle School District from 2001 to 2007. He retired in the summer of 2007.

But that didn't last long.

Proving that life moves in cycles, Epperson is back at Uni serving as interim head yet again, as the school prepares for a nationwide search for a permanent director/principal.

Making the Transition

Epperson fully believes that his experience as a teacher has helped him become a better administrator.

“I think that once you’ve been in the classroom, you can relate better to some of the problems the teachers have to deal with,” he said.

Nevertheless, a teaching position and an administrative position are very different.

While teachers mainly have to worry about how their decisions impact their classroom, administrators must take into consideration how their choices will affect teachers, parents, and alumni.

“As an administrator you look at the big picture,” Epperson said. “Administrative decisions have a little broader reach than a teacher’s. If a concern comes to me, I have to look at it from the parent’s perspective, the student’s perspective, and I have to look at it from the teacher’s perspective.”

Uni's director/principal and his wife, Debbie, enjoying a ride on a boat.
Photo courtesy of Steve Epperson (click to enlarge)

But teachers and administrators do share one common denominator: the students.

“The common line to both of these jobs is that you have to care about the students,” Epperson explained.

Uni teachers in general find Epperson to be fair and thoughtful, and they also think his work thus far as interim school leader has been commendable.

“He looks at all sides of a situation,” Kovacs said. “He’s willing to take issues back to executive teachers or the assistant principal if he feels like it isn’t his issue to deal with.”

Epperson himself believes that having been a teacher at Uni has helped him tremendously understand the fine details of the administrative position.

“I think part of the reason they asked me to come back in this interim role here was because, unless you’ve been in a Uni classroom, you don’t really know what it’s like. It’s different.”

Epperson furthermore thinks that the leadership position at Uni is significantly different from similar stations he's held elsewhere. At your typical high school, according to Epperson, a principal’s time is mostly tied up dealing with disciplinary matters. However, at Uni a principal’s focus is on communication and planning.

“There are three main parts of my jobs,” Epperson said. “Working with the faculty, working with the students, and working with parents. I want to be available to the students. The key is to be willing to talk, listen, and communicate.”

Epperson gave the example of planning early dismissals as a typical concern he has to deal with. Since the teachers are very worried about the loss of class time, Epperson must make sure that when there is an early dismissal, each teacher is alerted ahead of time. He also must make sure that all teachers receive the same number of minutes for class.

“Academics is such a priority that everything we do administratively has to have that in the back of our minds,” Epperson noted.

Looking Back, Looking Forward

The things that Epperson liked the most about Uni when he was first here have remained the same.

The lockers are still open, students are still friendly, and the atmosphere is still open.

For the most part, Epperson doesn’t think that Uni has changed a lot over the past 20 years, noting that even some of the teachers are the same.

“I will say one thing I’ve noticed from the students’ perspective — there’s a greater emphasis on activism in the community and in the country as a whole,” he observed. “I see the e-mails that students send out about things going on around town … one was about preparing Thanksgiving dinner for the needy. I think that’s just wonderful! It’s a big thing.”

Epperson has many plans and ideas in store for the next two years. As far as academics go, he is both excited and anxious about the English curriculum in which juniors and seniors take semester-long classes in a variety of literature courses, a change that is only in its second year.

“On one hand, [the English curriculum] has created scheduling problems,” he said. “We have more singleton classes — if two of them happen to be in the same period, you can’t take both of them.”

The Epperson family! In the back row, from left to right: Chris Tyra holding Grace Tyra, Rob Epperson, Stephanie Raycraft, Dan St. Martin, Debbie Epperson holding Cooper St. Martin, Steve Epperson. In front row from left to right: Teri Tyra holding Jackson Tyra, Ethan St. Martin, Kim St. Martin, Stephanie Epperson, Ellie St. Martin.
Photo courtesy of Steve Epperson (click to enlarge)

On the other hand, Epperson sees the importance of introducing students to new subjects and cultures.

Most students can identify with the dilemmas of class scheduling at Uni. This year was especially disappointing to upperclassmen who were not able to take certain electives; scheduling issues kept students out of several science and social science classes.

As a remedy Epperson hopes to get some of these issues ironed out by completing class scheduling earlier in the year and mailing out course materials to the students by early spring.

“We’re wanting to get registration material [in the mail by] the third week of May,” Epperson explained.

In addition to resolving scheduling predicaments, Epperson will be looking at the general layout of Uni High’s calendar.

“One of the things I’m really interested in is talking to students and teachers about how they feel about semester exams before winter break or after,” he said. ”[T]he way students and teachers feel about it will have a big impact on how we plan the calendar for next year.”

There are other things that Epperson hopes to improve.

“We have some procedural things that we need to work on. Our financial reporting needs to be improved. Our personnel policy needs to be improved,” he said.

“Facility-wise it would be nice if the North Attic had air conditioning. It also would be nice if it were redesigned to make it more accessible for student productions.”

However, most of Epperson’s energy is focused on preparing the director/principal position so that the transition for his successor will be as easy and smooth as possible.

“I want so badly for Uni to get a top person to fill this job,” he said. “I think the more we can get done before that person gets here, the better chance we’ll be able to get an outstanding person to sit in this chair. If a person coming in saw some planning in place, they’d be more likely to take on the challenge instead of it being, ‘There’s a problem, deal with it.’”

Since there’s a lot of work to get done, the U of I Provost's Office approached Epperson in the fall about continuing as interim director/principal through the 2008-09 school year. Originally he had been hired just for 2007-08.

“I was a little hesitant at first when I was approached about staying another year,” he said. “Not because I didn’t want to do it, but because I didn’t want the students, teachers, and parents to be upset about the idea.”

However, now that it seems as though students, teachers, and parents alike think that he is doing a fine job, Epperson is more confident that he has the support to take on another year in charge.

But above all, Epperson wants to stay another year so that as many kinks in the system can be worked out as possible.

“I’m a math person, and I like closure,” he explained. “There are several things I’m working on right now that I don’t think I can get done by June. I really believe that Uni deserves the best person possible for this job. If [Uni has a] plan along the way, I think a candidate would be more inclined the take the job.”

MORE ABOUT Steve Epperson: Some Favorites at a glance

• Movie: “Field of Dreams”
• Band: The Beatles
• Song: “Hey Jude” by The Beatles
• Food: Pizza
• Ice Cream Flavor: Vanilla
• Restaurant: Gino's Pizza or Maggiano's
• Sport: Baseball!
• Team: The Cardinals or The Illini
• Color: Blue
• Book: “Savage Inequalities” by Jonathan Kozol
• State: Florida
• Country: United States
• Vacation Destination: Cooperstown, N.Y.