HUMBOLDT — When Kyle Stanley walked through the halls of Humboldt HIgh School earlier this year, he saw a building largely different from the one he attended as a student in the early 1990s.
After all, the school had undergone multiple renovations since then — most recently two years ago — with a number of new classrooms, hallways and a sparkling new office area.
Stanley, a 1991 HHS graduate, was interviewing to become the school’s new principal.
And while he’s stayed in touch with old friends and classmates through the years, Stanley admitted not getting that sense of nostalgia as he walked through the halls of a school he last entered 35 years ago.
“Until I got to the third floor,” he chuckled. “That’s when I felt the goosebumps.”
That’s where Stanley saw his old science classroom.
He didn’t know it at the time, but his junior science class, under the instruction of the late Frank Hemphill, was about to change his life.
“I was an OK student, nothing special,” Stanley said. “And I can’t put my finger on exactly what it was, but he believed in me, and got me to think differently about myself, which is probably the main reason I went into education.”
Fast forward to this week, when Stanley, 53, greeted Humboldt students returning to class as Humboldt High’s next principal. He replaces the retired John Johnson.
STANLEY’S path to a career in education was hardly a straight line.
“And I never thought I’d be back at Humboldt,” he admitted.
After graduating from Humboldt in 1991, Stanley attended Allen Community College for two years — and then took eight more years to get a bachelor’s degree in biology at Pittsburg State University.
“I kind of went as I could afford it.”
That meant taking a year or two off at a time to re-enter the workforce.
By the time Stanley earned his degree at PSU, his focus was on a career in pharmaceutical sales.
But that dream evaporated within a year.
