ORANGE BEACH – Randy Wilkes, who directed Phenix City schools for the last eight years and was named Alabama's superintendent of the year in 2019, will become Orange Beach’s first permanent school superintendent following action by the new city school board.

The board voted unanimously Tuesday, June 7, to hire Wilkes.

Robert Stuart, board president, said Wilkes was selected from 21 applicants, five of whom were interviewed for the position. He said the entire board felt that Wilkes was the obvious choice.

“When you go over his resume, it's very impressive considering when he first came into Phenix City schools and where they wanted to grow, so when he left, all of his schools were STEAM-certified, which is huge, and that is one of the big items on our list that we wanted to see for that,” Stuart said. “It's always easy to answer questions, the easy questions, the softball questions, but when we asked him some of the harder questions, it was seamless. His answers were seamless, and you could tell his passion and conviction and his answers just sold everyone.”

Wilkes said he was looking forward to working with the board, educators and the community.

“It's a beautiful location with beautiful people,” Wilkes said. “I've been terribly impressed with the board members that I've met and the vision for this school system and from city officials and from the mayor, it's really one that, I'm 33 years in education now and I really feel like I'm at the apex and in my prime, so coming and starting just really made a lot of sense and a lot of things in the end just really fell into place for us.”

He said the needs of students will always be a top priority for the Orange Beach system.

“Of course, student safety is first and foremost,” Wilkes said. “We also always want to do what is in the best interests of students first and foremost and then we're going to look at research and evidence-based practices to make sure that we have good reasons for doing the things that we're doing ,and we're always going to be good stewards of the taxpayer dollar, of course those are very important to me.”

The Orange Beach City Council voted March 15 to create a municipal school system and to separate city schools from the Baldwin County School System by July 1. Wilkes said the board and city officials have made a great deal of progress, but Orange Beach still has much to compete before schools open in August.

“Making sure that we work with the state department to make sure that the funding is secure that we're supposed to be receiving here,” Wilkes said. “Also, making sure that we have people in place. We've got to look at our human resources department and make sure that every position is filled and then we'll work on some other things. They've got a good start already on board policy and so forth, so really we are in the short rows already and getting ready for school.”

Stuart said Wilkes has served as a math teacher and coached girls’ and boys’ athletics. He served as an assistant principal, a principal, a superintendent of Crenshaw County and Phenix city schools.

Board lawyer Nash Campbell said Wilkes will receive a base salary of $260,000 a year.