Mr. Jaynes is principal of Logan County High School. He made the following remarks during the formal announcement of the appointment of Lonnie Mason as the school's head boys basketball coach.

Athletics is an important part of any high school and community in our Commonwealth. I don't think that anyone would dispute that point. Athletics promotes a sense of school pride. Athletics provides a means of community for many individuals and teaches many life lessons along the way. Students who are involved in some form or extracurricular activity are 85 percent more likely to graduate high school and have a successful transition to adult life. I have often said that I would not be where I am today without two of my coaches in high school, Kevin Gaugler and Harry Miller, who invested their time and efforts in my development as an athlete, but also as a student and a person.

But we must remember that these are student-athletes. Student comes first for a reason. At some point their athletic career ends. Some careers end at high school, hopefully many at college and for two of our former students at the professional level. Soon enough our children will have to rely on their education for their career. We must remember that as we develop our children into student-athletes that decisions about their future should be based on education first and athletics second.

In our vision to become one of the top 10 high schools in the Commonwealth both in academics and extracurricular activities, it is important that we develop students and athletes. This will involve many members of the community to start working together with our high school programs and helping us to teach the fundamentals of any activity. Our K-8 centers are doing a wonderful job of preparing our students academically as shown by our recent selection as a Bronze level best high school in America by US News and World Report, one of only 58 high schools in the Commonwealth.

We must do a better job of preparing our students at an early age the fundamentals of any activity that they are interested in, whether its music, cheerleading, FFA, or basketball. If you will look at our traditionally successful programs at LCHS, our students get involved early in their career, many at the fourth and fifth grade levels. In order to continue this success our basketball program must begin to have cohesiveness at the elementary and middle school levels. This is due to many factors that we are working on to help get all of our extracurricular activities pointed in the right direction so that our community can experience that success.

We will need everyone to support all of our programs, but especially basketball. It is a great time to continue to develop the tradition and success that our students deserve and our community desires. This will take a lot of time, hard-work and dedication on our part, but anything worth obtaining takes all of these qualities.