New Beginnings, familiar face

A new interim principal. 

A new leader.

A new exciting, uplifting, well-loved leader. But this leader isn’t so new to Wando. With a big smile on his face, Kim Wilson walks the halls of Wando High School, greeting students everyday. 

Originally starting his career as the Director of Guidance in 1985, Wilson soon grabbed the hearts of staff members and students. For 15 years, Wilson worked with guidance, before moving up to associate principal. 

There, people grew to love and adore him. 

Even after leaving in 2010, the Wando community still felt the impact Wilson had on them. It was no surprise the amount of love and support Wilson would receive when he took the job as interim principal. 

“The superintendent called me and asked if I’d help them out here…and so I said let me talk with my wife and get her blessing on this, and we talked and she said yeah, you know Kim this would be a great way to give back to a community that gave us so much,” Wilson said. 

Even though Wilson had commitments booked up until October with an organization called the Flippen Group, a group that helps train school districts and teachers in capturing kids’ hearts, he still managed to make the new role work. 

However, Wilson had his doubts about coming back. 

“I was a little apprehensive, cause you never know how people will perceive you,” Wilson said. “So far it’s been exciting. There’s not a day that I don’t come to work that I’m not excited or glad to see somebody or interact with somebody.” 

While Wilson is only the interim principal, his role and leadership for the whole school is still very important. Setting his goals for the school year, Wilson not only thinks about the staff, but the students as well. 

“My two goals is to help faculty and staff grow as teachers and leaders and that includes my administrative staff, and then for us as a school to become a high performing team,” Wilson said. “I say that about the students too because leadership is not a committee of one. We need students to make good choices and be great students.”

Wilson’s energy and positivity has spread throughout the school so much that even Wando graduate and assistant principal, Charles Finch, was beyond excited to hear that Wilson was returning to Wando. 

Graduating in 2007, Finch was a student with a close personal relationship with Wilson during his time as associate principal. However, this relationship didn’t start because Finch was in and out of his office, but because of what he wanted to do with his life. 

“My junior and senior year I ended up bonding with him a lot for two reasons. His son…played football here and was a kicker a couple years in front of me and went to the Citadel, and so I really wanted to go to the Citadel,” Finch said. “His wife, Mrs. Wilson, was the teacher cadet teacher here and I did teacher cadet with her and so I was able to grow even more of a relationship with Mr. Wilson and Mrs. Wilson.” 

Finch noticed that even after his time at Wando was over, Wilson was nothing but supportive to him. 

“After I got out of the Citadel he’s one of the first people reaching out to me telling me good job and if I ever needed a job, at that time Stall, let him know. He’s always been supportive and he’ll stop what he’s doing to help anybody,” Finch said.  

With Wilson as his boss now, Finch has noticed how much he truly cares for everyone. 

“He’s very active in his role here. When we are sitting admin huddles one of his biggest things is he’s trying to grow us as leaders…and he’s trying not to just run the school but trying to make each one of us be better people,” Finch said. 

Not only was Finch excited to hear about Wilson’s return, but Algebra 1 teacher, Stephanie McGuffin, was just as happy. 

Wilson had such a positive impact on McGuffin that once the new Wando opened, she changed what math she was teaching, just so she could work directly under him. 

“He was going to be head of the freshmen academy, and I enjoyed working with him so much at the old Wando that I said oh I’ll just teach 9th graders just to be under him and work for him,” McGuffin said. 

Feeling his presence trickling down, McGuffin can’t wait to see what this new school year brings. 

“I can already feel a great vibe in this school. He’s been amazing, he’s got a lot of spirit, he’s got a lot of enthusiasm, I just can feel it and it’s trickling down to all the teachers and it’s trickling down to all the students,” McGuffin said. “You see him in the halls, he’s having a conversation with either you or a student, and he really cares about everybody that he works with.”