Harbison is new HHS principal

By Joseph Cyr
Staff Writer
    HODGDON — A familiar face for SAD 70 has taken over as the Hodgdon High School principal.
    Mary Harbison, who started the school year as the interim principal following the departure of Clark Rafford this summer, has officially taken over as principal. She was named to the position by the SAD 70 school board at its September meeting.
    This past summer, Rafford has stepped down from his position after 15 years with the district to become the principal of Telstar Regional Middle School in Bethel.
Houlton Pioneer Times Photo/Joseph Cyr
NEW PRINCIPAL — Mary Harbison, a long-time employee of SAD 70, has been named as the new Hodgdon High School principal.
    “Mary was really interested in the position and has done a really good job within our district,” SAD 70 Superintendent Bob McDaniel said. “She has worn a lot of different hats for us over the years. We felt it was in the best interests of the school district to put her in this position.”
    Harbison has plenty of experience with administrative responsibilities. Prior to her hiring, she was the assistant elementary principal at Hodgdon Mill Pond School for 12 years. She was also principal at Southern Aroostook Community School from 1985-87.
    “I was excited by the opportunity to become the high school principal,” Harbison said. “I know nearly all of the kids in this building, with the exception of maybe 10 kids, because I knew them from Mill Pond School. I have really enjoyed seeing how they have grown and matured.”
    Harbison began her teaching career in the Massachusetts area. She left the education field when she relocated to Aroostook County and became program director for what is now Community Living Association. She was also an administrator for the Park Street Group Home, a residential care center that she opened.
    The call to education lured Harbison back when she took the principal’s position at SACS, but a death in the family, coupled with a new baby and changes to her husband’s (David) plumbing business, became too much of a strain. She left the principal’s post at SACS and became a licensed social worker for the Department of Mental Health and Human Services.
    She once again heard the call to the classroom and became a teacher at Houlton Elementary School, where she worked for 11 years before joining Mill Pond School as its assistant principal.
    “I’ve gotten to experience students in three different school district and from the elementary level up through to high school,” Harbison said.
    One of the challenges of her new position includes dealing with a completely different set of student issues going from the elementary to high school level. The social issues facing high school students are far different from those facing elementary students.
    “Everything has been really positive for me,” she said. “These kids that are getting ready to go off to college, I remember from first grade.”
    Some of her goals for the year include continuing the work set forth by Rafford for a school improvement action plan and developing syllabi for each course offered at the school.
    Harbison said there are a lot of similarities between her previous and current positions.
    “I know a lot of the people that work in this building and have worked with many of them over the years,” she said. “A lot of them have transferred over from Mill Pond to the high school. But there is also a bunch of new teachers and we are all learning to get to know one another.”
    She added she was relieved the district hired a new, part-time athletic director (Wayne Quint) to help ease her workload. Prior to his hiring, Harbison was performing the high school principal duties as well as the athletic administrator responsibilities for both the high school and elementary school.