The Press-Dispatch

February 6, 2019

The Press-Dispatch

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The Press-Dispatch Wednesday, Februar y 6, 2019 C-11 EAST GIBSON NEWS Submit school news: Email: egnews@ pressdispatch.net Deadline: Noon on Friday Oakland City Elementary By Kenzie Rudolph Oakland City Elementa- ry's principal, Matt Malin, has had a busy career lead- ing up to him becoming the Acorn principal seven years ago. He graduated from Wood Memorial in 1986, then started college at Oakland City, where he received two degrees, one in Reli- gious Studies and one in Education. From there, he taught for about five years before going to Indiana State, where he graduated in 1997 with his Master's in Education and his Prin- cipal's license. In 1989, Malin became a youth pastor for the first time at Oakland City Church of the Nazarene. Then he went to Mackey Salem United Methodist Church, where he still cur- rently preaches as the head pastor. He started his 20 -year teaching career at Wood Memorial Jr. High and High School. He taught sev- enth and eighth grade P.E., freshman P.E., U.S. Histo- ry and he spent one year with sixth graders before becoming OCE's principal. Before deciding early in college that he wanted to go into the education field, Ma- lin thought that he wanted to pursue a military career. He added that his life would have been very different if he would have taken that route, and that he would be retired by now. "I am glad the way it turned out. I made the right decision," he said. In 2012, Malin became Oakland City Elementary's principal. When asked if it was dif- ficult to juggle being an el- ementary school principal as well as a pastor, Malin said "No, not too bad. The school is really good about understanding that and so is my church…it can be hec- tic at times when you have church things going on as well as school, and you're trying to be at both and do UPCOMING SPORTS SCHEDULE MONDAY, FEB. 11 Wrestling (7 & 8) at Mt. Carmel, 5:30 p.m. TUESDAY, FEB. 12 Wrestling (7 & 8) Wood Memorial Invitational, 5 p.m. Boys' Basketball ( V ) vs. South Spencer, 5:30 p.m. Principal Malin promotes doing your personal best at OCE Oakland City Elementray principal, Matt Malin. Kenzie Rudolph photo Students laugh and wait in the hall, for time to enter the classrooms. Pic- tured are, front row (l to r): Parker Conder, Kenneth Robbins, Logan Dodge and John Like. Back row: Jared Stolz and Ayden Buck. Kenzie Rudolph photo Girls enjoy each others company as the wait for time to enter the class- rooms. Pictured are, front row is Mallory Bailey; back row (l to r): Taylor Hee- man, Anna McCandleuss and Avery Vest. Kenzie Rudolph photo them both justice." As the principal, he thinks that it is more im- portant to encourage stu- dents and praise them for what they are doing right in- stead of always focusing on what they are doing wrong. "I see kids all the time for negatives, but I want to see the positives…the main thing that we try to do is just remind our kids of core val- ues that we have, working hard, giving our personal best every day and then al- so rewarding them for good behavior," he added. Malin also said that the students need to be uplifted and told that they are good, and that they can do whatev- er they put their mind to. He said that he likes to dress up for the school's spirit days along with the kids, and he also tries hard to learn ev- ery student's name. He added, "I have fun, that's part of it. Might as well enjoy the days, and dress up and have fun. I think the kids like that, and I want them to know that we can have fun, too, teachers and myself, and school should be fun. If it's not, then we have got to do better. It needs to be educa- tional and fun." He said that his main goal for the future of Oak- land City Elementary is to always give the Acorn stu- dents his personal best in everything that he does, not just educationally, but as a person. Gas leak prompts evacuation A gas leak at First Avenue and Co- lumbia in Oakland City led the Gibson County Sheriff's Of- fice to recommend a two-block radius of evacuation as crews handled the clean- up. At least part of the evacuation en- compassed Oakland City University cam- pus property, where the gas smell was present even beyond the two-block pe- rimeter. net edition pressdispatch.net/edition Web, Smartphone, Tablet Streamline the Headline! The Press Dispatch PIKE COUNTY'S NEWS NETWORK Want to share your news with others? The Press- Dispatch can help deliver it to Pike and the surrounding counties. NEWS! 812-354-8500

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