Lopez named principal at Greywolf Elementary

By Michael Dashiell • August 10, 2022 1:30 am
Submitted photo / Jennifer Lopez, then a teacher at Greywolf Elementary School, talks with parents about how to help their students become better readers at the Parent Night in October 2016. Lopez will take the role of principal at Greywolf this fall, superintendent Regan Nickels said.
Submitted photo / Jennifer Lopez, then a teacher at Greywolf Elementary School, talks with parents about how to help their students become better readers at the Parent Night in October 2016. Lopez will take the role of principal at Greywolf this fall, superintendent Regan Nickels said.

One new lead administrator is in, and another is on the way.

Jennifer Lopez, who held the role of acting principal at Greywolf Elementary School for a portion of the 2021-2022 school year, is in line to be the next principal at the Carlsborg school, Sequim schools superintendent Regan Nickels said in early August.

Lopez succeeds Donna Hudson, principal at Greywolf since 2010 who took on the position of director of the district’s T&L (Teaching and Learning) Department in February. The board approved her taking the role permanently in July.

Hudson’s duties include overseeing several district programs such as Title I, Highly Capable and McKinney-Vento, as well as curriculum adoption and review, then-interim superintendent Joan Zook said in March.

Board directors will have the opportunity to confirm Lopez’s role at the Aug. 15 meeting.

Nickels also said the staff hopes to have candidate for the open Sequim High School principal position as well by the Aug. 15 meeting.

Shawn Langston, SHS principal since 2002, resigned his position; his last day was July 29.

Date set for stadium naming

Details are still being fleshed out, but school board directors have approved a date — Friday, Sept. 16 — to celebrate the naming of the Sequim School District’s athletic facility West Fir Street.

Following the recommendation of a committee assigned to consider facility names, directors approved naming the stadium stáʔčəŋ, a S’Klallam word pronounced “stah-chung” and meaning “wolf,” and the field to Myron Teterud’s Field, after the longtime, late SHS sports fanatic.

In partnership with the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe and the Sequim Alumni Association, the district will invite the community to celebrate the changes at 4:45 p.m., prior to Sequim High School football team’s Olympic League opener against Bainbridge (kickoff at 7 p.m.).

“This is certainly an exciting event for our community and our school,” Nickels said at the board’s Aug. 1 meeting.

District public information officer Megan Lyke said the district wanted to wait until students were back in session to host the celebration so they could participate.

The committee to name the stadium and field included seven members: Dustin Brenske, Jamestown S’Klallam deputy director of Social and Community Services; Craig Brooks, Sequim High School athletic director; Sequim Alumni Association president Lorri Gilchrist; Jessica Humphries, Jamestown S’Klallam Youth and Teen Program Coordinator; Sequim High School principal Shawn Langston; Judy Reandeau Stipe, Sequim Museum & Arts executive director, and Joan Zook, then the Sequim School District’s interim superintendent.

The committee met twice — April 28 and May 6 — and the proposal that came out of those meetings had overwhelming and unanimous support and enthusiasm, Zook said.

Teterud, who rooted on SHS athletics for the past six decades, died April 30, 2021, at 81. He suffered a stroke in 2018. For months prior to his death, Sequim Alumni Association members and other community members advocated for naming the athletic facility after Teterud.

“Fields and stadiums are typically named after hall-of-fame type folks, which is great. But naming the field after Myron says something about our community, that we value our fans as much as we do our athletes,” Gilchrist said in July.