A Hooks educator said being named the Region 8 Principal of the Year has been a team effort and she is just a “piece of the puzzle.”
A Hooks educator said being named the Region 8 Principal of the Year has been a team effort and she is just a “piece of the puzzle.”
“I didn’t do it on my own. Our campus came together … It wasn’t just me. I’m just a piece of the puzzle and if we don’t all work together the way that we do, then the pieces of the puzzle just don’t fit together,” Kelly Odom said.
Odom is the principal of Hooks Junior High School and was named this year’s principal of the year through the Texas Association of Secondary School Principals.
“It’s an honor because we have so many wonderful administrators,” Odom said.
Odom has been an educator since 1998, having started her student teaching in Hooks. After a year stint at College Hill Middle School in Texarkana, Arkansas, she returned to Hooks in 2000 and never left.
Odom became the associate principal of HJHS in 2020 and the solo principal last year.
She said it is the people of Hooks that keeps her there.
“It’s a very close knit family. We take care of each other and we’re always there for each other. Our whole community supports our students,” she said.
Odom attributes her success to the support and buy-in from her upper administration, school board members and staff of HJHS for her success.
“Our whole campus wants to do well. I feel like Hooks Junior High School is the best kept secret in Bowie County. Our teachers are there because they care, they have heart. I really have to give the credit to our whole staff. All of their hard work and dedication, they put our students first and they work really hard to make sure they can receive the best education possible.”
And she doesn’t see herself stepping down any time soon.
“I do not plan on slowing down. I plan on continuing to work hard to make sure that we can do the very best for our students,” she said.
But entering into education was not part of her plan after graduating Atlanta High School.
“I wasn’t going to go to school. I was going to be an airline stewardess. I’d been accepted and was off to Dallas when I graduated,” Odom said.
It was a scholarship given to her by Marsha K. Frank, her eleventh and twelfth grade English teacher, which put her on a new path.
“She gave me a scholarship in memory of her father,” Odom said. “She gave me the confidence in myself just in that one little scholarship … It touched me. I thought that if she thinks enough of me, I am at least going to try … “If that one person made a difference in me, and I know that, think about all the differences that we might make if we give people the tools and the confidence to move forward.”
Odom is a mother of four, three boys and a girl.
Ryne and Layne Stubbs graduated from Hooks High School and twins, Kaydon and Karson Odom, are eighth grade students at Hooks Junior High. Ryne, a 2015 graduate, works as a detective for the Texarkana, Arkansas, Police Department. Layne, a 2018 grad, works as a commercial loan assistant for Texana Bank.