The Perry Community School District has a new activities director as it prepares to head into another school year.

Katelyn Whelchel graduated from Perry in 2015 and has since spent time in the district as a kindergarten teacher and third grade teacher while also coaching and is the new activities director for the district. Whelchel says her life has featured plenty of athletics which has helped lead her in this direction. 

“During that time the activities director position came open and I was like this is something that I would like to pursue in the future and talked to Clark Wicks our superintendent and said ‘Hey do I even have a shot, is this something I can even work towards?’ and he was like ‘Yeah, absolutely go for it.’ So, I did and here I am now which is pretty exciting.”

Whelchel tells Raccoon Valley Radio she wants people to know she is very passionate about what she does and cares a lot about the kids as well as the programs in the district. Whelchel says she is going to come in and work hard.

“I want people to know that my goal is to continue pushing us in the right direction. We have some momentum right now and I want to keep building that and by the end of my time in the AD world I want to make sure that we leave Perry schools in a great place.”

Whelchel says another focus will also be filling various coaching vacancies throughout the district and trying to attract more coaching candidates.