A longtime school administrator with roots in Dresden and prior experience as a superintendent in Lincoln County will be the interim superintendent of Wiscasset schools for the 2014-2015 school year.
Lyford Beverage will be the town’s second interim superintendent. The Wiscasset School Board announced the hire on Thursday, June 26.
Beverage, 71, has almost 45 years of educational experience, from bus driver to superintendent. “I have had just about every job there is in the educational field,” Beverage said.
Beverage grew up on Call’s Hill Road in Dresden. He was superintendent of the former School Union 51 from 1999 until his retirement in 2005. The union included the Lincoln County towns of Jefferson, Somerville, and Whitefield, as well as Chelsea, Palermo, and Windsor.
Beverage lives in Pittsfield, home to Maine Central Institute, where he taught for many years. He has been a principal of various schools in central Maine throughout his career.
Beverage has filled interim superintendent roles with Madawaska and School Administrative Districts 41 (Atkinson, Brownville, LaGrange, and Milo) and 59 (Madison) since his retirement.
“There are mountains of work to be done,” Beverage said.
Beverage applauded the board’s decision to hire an interim for the first year, because many tough decisions will need to be made.
Those decisions will please some and upset others, and it would be a shame for a permanent superintendent to start the job with a lot of baggage, Beverage said.
“I’m looking forward to shaping a system that is efficiency-based and student-oriented and developing a culture where kids are identified as individuals for whom we have an obligation to do something good,” Beverage said.
The board also approved a contract extension for Wayne Dorr, Wiscasset’s interim superintendent since January. Dorr will stay on for up to a month to help with Beverage’s transition. Beverage’s contract begins July 1 and runs for a year.
