Jefferson County superintendent Carl Bethune has been named as the winner of the tenth annual Bill Barr Leadership Award.  Mr. Bethune received the honor at the Awards Luncheon at the recently-completed GSSA Fall Bootstrap Conference in Athens.

The Bill Barr Leadership Award, named for and designed in honor of the highly-respected first executive director of GSSA, is among the most coveted awards in public education in Georgia.  Those veteran superintendents who have been named as winners each year since the award’s inception in 2000 have been those whose names have been synonymous with mentoring others, and Mr. Bethune epitomizes that quality.

In presenting the award to Mr. Bethune, GSSA president Steve Smith noted that those nominating him had consistently referred to him as a man with "wisdom, insight, professionalism, leadership, and integrity."  Fellow superintendents who had been the recipients of Mr. Bethune's guidance and support praised him for his ability to "tap into the potential around him" and for having "skills and abilities one would hope to imitate."  GSSA congratulates Carl Bethune, superintendent of Jefferson County Schools, for this signal honor.