×
×
homepage logo

New BEA superintendent can’t wait to get started

By Staff | Mar 18, 2012

Evan Gough outside his new office.

Now it’s official.

The Blue Earth Area School Board voted unanimously Monday night to approve a contract hiring Evan Gough as the new BEA superintendent.

Gough will take over the administrative reins from current superintendent Dale Brandsoy when Brandsoy retires at the end of June.

Gough (pronounced “Goff”) is currently the assistant high school principal in Red Wing.

“I am pretty happy here in Red Wing, it is a good school,” he says. “But, being a superintendent has been a career goal of mine.”

Despite that goal, Blue Earth Area was the only district he applied at to become a superintendent.

“Actually, I saw a story in the Faribault County Register while visiting my inlaws,” he explains. “The story detailed how Dale Brandsoy was retiring and the process that would occur to hire a new superintendent.”

Gough says his inlaws live on a farm just outside of Albert Lea.

“My mother-in-law is a former Elmore resident and graduated from there,” he says. “Her name is Janae (Krupp) Clausen. She still gets the Register every week.”

Gough decided to apply at BEA after reading about the school district.

“It seemed like it would be a really good fit for me,” BEA’s newly hired superintendent says. “It was just what I was looking for. And, I thought I would be a good fit for the district.”

Gough was not unfamiliar with the Blue Earth Area School District.

“My wife, Amy, taught at BEA from 2002 to 2005, as a music teacher,” he says. “She was teaching here when we started dating.

The couple was married in the summer of 2005, and Amy left Blue Earth to be with her husband.

Gough has been a principal at Red Wing for three years. Before that he was the dean of students at Annandale.

For seven years he was a math teacher at several South Dakota schools.

“I started out at my hometown school in Salem, S.D.,” he says. “My parents still live there on the farm just north of town where I grew up.”

After seven years of teaching math at Salem, he moved on to teach at Sioux Falls Lincoln High School for four years and Aberdeen Central High School for one year.

BEA’s newly hired superintendent received his graduate degree at Dakota State University and his master’s degree, in school administration, at South Dakota State University.

“I received my specialist’s degree in school administration at the University of South Dakota,” Gough says. “Now I am working on my doctorate at USD.”

He says his plan was to complete his doctorate by 2013, but that might increase by a year, now that he has the superintendent position in Blue Earth.

And, has become a new father.

“I just might not have the time to complete the doctorate work,” he says. “And that is alright. I will get it done, just not as quickly as I thought. I am looking at it as a marathon, and not a sprint.”

Evan and Amy Gough became parents for the first time just one hour before he received the phone call that he was the choice to come to Blue Earth Area.

“It was quite a day,” he says. “One we will never forget.”

While there were some difficulties with the birth resulting in an emergency C-section mother and daughter, Aria Elizabeth, are both doing fine now.

Now, the Goughs are excited about making the move to the Blue Earth area. They hope to relocate to the area by the middle of June, but, that involves selling their current home in Red Wing and finding one in the Blue Earth area.

“I am very excited to start working with the Blue Earth Area district,” Gough says. “I am very impressed with the amount of community support there is for the children in the district.”

He says having 70-plus community members at the public forum meeting, which was part of his interview process, was impressive.

“Some in the audience were of retirement age, yet they were still very interested in the school system,” he says. “Many asked good, thoughtful questions.”

Gough says Blue Earth Area has an excellent reputation in the state as a great school.

“We look forward to moving here and becoming part of this community,” he says. “I am anxious to get here and get to work. I can’t wait.”