(Jack Eberhard/JacksActionShots.com)
AURORA — Jim Lucas, an assistant principal at Pine Creek High School, has been elected as the next president of CHSAA’s Board of Directors.
Lucas’ appointment will be made formal at the Legislative Council meeting on Thursday. He will become the 61st Board president, succeeding Boulder’s Eddie Hartnett.
Lucas will serve as Board president during the 2017-18 and 2018-19 school years. His term will begin in June 2017.
“It’s going to be exciting, and it’s going to be challenging,” Lucas said on Wednesday night. “It’s humbling to be selected.”
Lucas currently represents the Colorado Association of School Executives on CHSAA’s Board of Directors, and has since 2011. He will be the first Board president from the Colorado Springs area since Widefield’s Shelli Miles was president from 2009-11.
Lucas has a wide range of experience at both small and large high schools, as well as public and private high schools, ranging from being a coach to a teacher to an administrator. He has spent time at a number of Colorado high schools, including Columbine, Crowley County, Custer County, and Florence. (He was principal at both Custer County, from 1996-99, and Florence, from 2000-08.)
He has been at Pine Creek ever since, including roles as interim athletic director and assistant principal.
Lucas says his wide-ranging experience will help him have a well-rounded viewpoint as Board president, including time at Fort Hays State University in Kansas, where he got his master’s degree in athletic administration.
“I have a soft spot in my heart for rural schools, just because I’ve worked in them. And I understand the big metro schools,” Lucas said. “Ultimately I think it will help as I lead the Board. Those experiences will help guide all of us, and guide myself.”
Lucas has twice previously served as a Board president for the Colorado Association of Secondary School Principals, of which he’s been a member since 2003.
“I think that will help me, having that experience with CASSP,” Lucas said.
Lucas said one of his focuses as president will be to help ease the transition from retiring CHSAA commissioner Paul Angelico to the next commissioner.
“I want to spend some time with that (new commissioner) and kind of give them some historical background of the Board of Directors,” Lucas said. “I want to see a smooth transition.”
CHSAA’s Board of Directors, formerly known as the Executive Committee, has been around in some form since the Association was formed in 1921.
Lucas applied to be Board president in December, writing a letter to CHSAA commissioner Paul Angelico.
The Board considered two candidates during an executive session on Thursday, and then voted to elect Lucas president.
While serving on the Board, Lucas has served on a variety of CHSAA committees, and helped to rewrite the Association’s personnel handbook.