Superintendent Dan Boyd retires

GAINESVILLE – In a half-empty office, with only a few boxes remaining, half packed, Superintendent Dan Boyd, sits in a chair at an empty table and talks about his last few days in office.

Boyd, 72, left his position as superintendent of Alachua County on Monday evening after serving as a Florida educator for, what Boyd would say, 49 and a quarter years. Of those 49 and a quarter, Boyd spent nine of them as the superintendent.

His last week in office has not been like a normal week. Between school events and packing his office up, it’s been much more hectic than usual, he said. Some of the stress comes from the number of celebrations he’s been to, most notably Gainesville High School’s commemorative event for him Wednesday, Sept. 25.

“I enjoyed it,” Boyd said. “It was nice. I got to see a lot of former teachers and people in the community that have meant a lot to me. It was a nice way to say goodbye.”

Of all the schools in Alachua County, Gainesville High School is the one that stands out the most for him. Like the first-born son to a mother and father, Gainesville High School sealed its place in Boyd’s heart as he spent 24 years there as the principal, he said.

Even if his last week at work was slow and calm, Boyd still wouldn’t regret his decision to retire three years early. He’s ready to read, hunt and spend time with his family.

“I’ll get a book and get up in a tree and sit there all day and read and watch to see what comes down the trail, and if it’s something good, then so be it,” Boyd said.

Boyd won’t just be focusing on his recreational activities like hunting and reading, but he’s excited to spend time with his daughters and grandchildren as well. His oldest granddaughter is going into ninth grade at Gainesville High School next year, and Boyd is interested in seeing her experience the high school where he worked for the majority of his career.

While Boyd is confident with his decision to retire, he won’t forget his proudest moments in his career. He will always be known for becoming a principal at Gainesville High School in 1971, he said, as tension between races grew shortly after desegregation.

During a time of serious racial conflict, Boyd looked to student government and sports to bring together the students and instill a sense of school pride. After three years of integrated sports, clubs and band, tensions began to ease, Boyd said.

Later in Boyd’s career when he became superintendent, he looked to unite the Alachua County Middle schools the same way he brought the students of Gainesville High School together, through sports. With a lot of work and campaigning for sports at middle schools, Boyd was granted approval to install three small sports into each of the middle schools. They were girls and boys basketball, volleyball and soccer.

“I have never missed a final or championship game the entire time I’ve been here,” Boyd said.

But his biggest and most memorable achievement is when Gainesville High School received a sports complex after a 20-year struggle to have one built, he said. The sports complex was built while he was still a principal for the school, but when he left it was named after him.

“They even named it in my honor when I left in 1995,” Boyd said. “It was called the W.D. Boyd Education Athletic Complex. I guess it was named for me because I stuck with it for 20 years.”

But in that mostly empty office that still held those half packed boxes, on his final day there, Boyd offered a piece of advice to all future superintendents: Trust the people you work with and to remember everyone is different, nobody is the same.

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