Larry Hill, Superintendent and Elementary Principal of North Iowa Community Schools, holds a masters degree in educational leadership from Drake University. He has been in education for over 28 years; and besides being a superintendent and elementary principal, Larry has been a classroom teacher for 17 years; a coach for 16 years; a middle school principal; an Educational Consultant with Northern Trails Area Education Agency; and an adjunct professor for William Penn College and Waldorf College.

Where ever Larry has lived, he’s become as fully embedded in the life of his community as one can be. He spent 10 years on the volunteer rescue squad and 10 years on the city council in Thompson (though he admits it was a write-in campaign staged by friends who first got him elected). He’s been president of the Bethany Lutheran Church, spent a decade teaching Sunday school and delivers guest sermons at church pulpits throughout the area. These days he and his wife Becky, college professor, pull an overnight shift staffing the local crisis hotline two nights a week.

I want to be seen as an equal rather than a mysterious guy from the schools,” says Hill.

His ongoing efforts, as he puts it, “to put the word ‘community’ back into our school name” have contributed to an enormous sense of ownership by the citizens in his 441-square mile school district, 10th largest geographically in Iowa. That ownership was certainly apparent in January 2001 when voters offered 80 percent approval for a $3.4 million bond to rebuild portions of the high school and add handicap accessibility to the district.

Larry is also a recipient of the Iowa Superintendent of the Year Award for 2005, and is about to start his doctoral dissertation at Drake University.