HOLLY POND — Nate Ayers has hit the ground running after being named principal of Holly Pond High School last month and he’s spent the summer preparing the school for his vision of the future.

To say Ayers’ roots run deep in Holly Pond would be an understatement. He has been involved in nearly every aspect of campus life. After graduating in 2003, he served as an assistant football coach while attending nursing school. The bench, where a conversation with former Head Football Coach Scott Adams led to Ayers changing majors to pursue a career in education, still sits in the stadium. He began his teaching career at the school and would move from assistant to head coach in 2010. Even after Ayers left the Cullman County School system to pursue an opportunity in administration with Etowah Middle School, his children remained students of Holly Pond.

Ayers said he never imagined he would leave his alma mater during his time as a teacher with the school, “That’s kind of the dream, to be able to teach where you grew up,” he said. But after nearly a decade, he found himself wanting to have more of an impact on a greater number of students, and knew he would need to position himself into an administrative role to do so.

After spending his entire life associated with the school in one capacity or another, stepping away allowed Ayers to see “outside of the bubble” and become a more well-rounded educator.

“If the way you’ve always done something is the only way you know, then it’s really hard to grow. Leaving allowed me to diversify. It allowed me to see how every kid learns,” he said.

Ayers is now hoping to breathe a bit of new life into Holly Pond by applying a few of those lessons in a way that maintains the spirit of the school. He said his administration will be “thinking outside of the box” and introducing several new ideas, but also plans to revitalize a number of school traditions which have been a source of pride within the community. He was unwilling to divulge any early details, but said he has plans for bringing back some previous senior festivities and intends to introduce a few of his own.

He intends to also begin circulating a monthly newsletter and plans for the school to become much more active on social media. “Every opportunity to celebrate our staff and our students, we’re going to do that,” he said.

“It’s about building a sustainable culture. The climate of your school is what happens in the building day to day, the culture is what happens over time. Any number of things can effect the climate on a given day, but if your culture is strong and you know and love each other, you can overcome all of that,” he said.

One of Ayers’ main focuses will be to build and strengthen the school’s relationship with the community of Holly Pond and its leaders. He has already begun attending Holly Pond Town Council meetings and intends to find ways to cultivate a mutually beneficial relationship which can benefit the town as a whole.

“Our community is the key to our success. We want to help our community and we want them to see us out there helping to make it better. We don’t want to stand there with our hands out,” he said.

The campus will also be offering several new facilities which are either under construction or nearing the end of their planning phases. The football stadium’s field house will be getting a 30 ft. expansion and an updated HVAC system and renovations are in the works to update the hospitality facility. The baseball field will soon have a new hitting facility and the rear entrance to school’s parking lot will be expanded to accommodate two lanes of traffic.

On the interior of the school, students can expect to see a revamped library when returning from summer break. Ayers said he plans to replace the older, dated tables and seating with more modular “soft-seating” to cater to the needs of multiple groups or clubs wishing to use the space. A new interactive panel will also be installed to give students hands-on experience with lessons which would otherwise be too dangerous or costly to offer.