Yesterday, roughly 700 staff members welcomed roughly 5,000 students to the first day of classes for Decatur County Schools. The first day of classes for Grace Christian Academy will be Monday.

These are important times for many first-time students, students changing schools and many first-time teachers. The beginning of a new school year can be both exciting and terrifying, both fun and stressful and both hectic and calm.

But I hope these first few days of school for all students, teachers, administrators, faculty and parents are awesome.

Being awesome seems to have become the mantra and goal for our school system. Whether intentional or not, having a shared vision of what we want to be is pretty awesome to me.

This was the message of new school system superintendent Tim Cochran, delivered during the annual convocation program earlier this week. From what I have heard and seen, that message seems to have resonated with faculty and staff, and I think that’s great.

After spending some time getting to know Cochran, I am happy he is here working with our students, and I am excited to see him lead the Decatur County system for years to come.

Being awesome in everything we do is such a simple concept, but at the same time will lead to the success that every student and teacher is striving to achieve.

As with the start of any school year, traffic patterns in the mornings and afternoon will change. Please consider these new patterns when making your own plans to travel around town, especially in the mornings and afternoons.

And, as you travel east on Highway 84 in the mornings and west in the afternoons, please be aware that there are young, and sometimes inexperienced, drivers traveling to and from Bainbridge High School.

Give these drivers the benefit of the doubt when driving in that area.

Let’s hope this is the best year ever, successes abound in our schools and all students live up to their potential and be the best they can be.

I’ll leave you with a poem, written by a Texan named Heartsill Wilson. This was a favorite poem of one of my heroes, Coach Bear Bryant of Alabama.

“This is the beginning of a new day. God has given me this day to use as I will. I can waste it or use it for good. What I do today is very important because I am exchanging a day of my life for it. When tomorrow comes, this day will be gone forever, leaving something in its place I have traded for it. I want it to be gain, not loss — good, not evil. Success, not failure in order that I shall not forget the price I paid for it.”

I’ll add one final piece, an addition so to speak, to this poem—Let’s use this day to be awesome in everything we do. Have a great school year, Go Bearcats and Go Cougars.