Superintendent interviews set for Thursday, Friday this week

    School board members, and district patrons if they choose, will get the chance to meet five candidates for Chase County Schools superintendent during interviews on Thursday and Friday.
    Board President Jeff Olsen released the names of the five candidates to be interviewed, where they currently work and the interview schedule.
    They include:
    Eugene “Mo” Hanks—Current high school principal at Kimball, serving there the past 13 years.
    Rod Richardson—High school principal at Kenesaw since August 2013.
    Adam Lambert—Superintendent at Cody-Kilgore Schools since 2016; also serves as their principal.
    Jarod Albers—High school principal at Cambridge since 2013; also serving as Activities Director at this time.
    Nicholas Mumm—Director of Academic Services at Elkhorn St. Patrick’s School this academic year; also serving as assistant principal since 2013.
    Adam Lambert is the son of current interim CCS Supt. Larry Lambert hired by the board in October.
    Here is the schedule for this week’s board interviews, which are open to the public:
    Thursday, Jan. 9—Albers at 8:30 a.m., Hanks at 10:30 a.m.
    Friday, Jan. 10—Lambert at 12 noon, Mumm at 2 p.m., Richardson at 4 p.m.
    While in town for the interviews, each of the candidates will also take a tour of the school buildings and the community.
    This process of hiring a CCS superintendent for 2020-21 comes at no additional cost to the district.
    After considering use of a third party firm to conduct the background checks on candidates, as they have in the past as well as narrowing the applicants to a list for interviews, Olsen said the board decided to do all of it in-house this time.         No outside firm was used for any part of the superintendent hiring for 2020-21, he said.
    The CCS board hired Larry Lambert as interim superintendent last fall to replace Randy KIooz, who resigned  effective Oct. 18, 2019. Lambert will finish the 2019-20 school year, with the new hire to start work for the 2020-21 school year this summer.
    The board also has a special meeting set for Saturday morning in the event they don’t vote to hire one of the five after they move into closed session following Friday’s final interview.
    The board will meet Tuesday at 6 p.m. for their regular monthly meeting, at which time action on a superintendent’s contract could happen.