BROOKINGS — The Brookings School District moved quickly to fill its open principal job by promoting from within — and hired an original Bobcat, to boot.

Current Assistant Principal Justin Stanley will take over the principal job at Brookings High School on July 1 and a search will begin for his replacement, Superintendent Summer Schultz wrote in an email to parents early Thursday.

The move comes just 10 days after the Brookings School Board accepted the resignation of Heather Miller-Cink at its last regular board meeting. Miller-Cink served in the top job at the high school for only a year after coming back to South Dakota from Brooklyn Park, Minnesota.

Stanley, a 1999 Bobcat graduate, returned to Brookings and BHS in 2021 when he took the assistant principal job.

“As my career kind of progressed, it became more and more of a goal to get back home,” Stanley said in an interview with the Register. “Once I got here there was some thought of moving into the principal role some day, but this is overwhelming,” he said.

According to the release, Stanley holds undergraduate degrees in elementary education and physical education from the University of Mary in Bismarck, N.D., as well as a masters in curriculum and instruction from St. Catherine University in St. Paul, Minn. He taught eighth grade at Horizon Middle School in Bismarck for a decade and was principal of Harvey High in Harvey, N.D., for six years.  

Stanley still has a month before he officially takes over the job, but said he wanted to build on the strengths of the high school first.

“My top thing would just be to continue the good work that has been done,” he said. “We have great kids at this school, we have a great staff, I just want to build on that and hopefully work on our relationships with the school community as a whole.

“I always want us to be moving upwards,” Stanley said. “That sense of Bobcat pride is something that I have always carried with me. So I’m very thankful for this opportunity, I feel truly blessed.”

Stanley and his wife Deann live in Brookings and have five children.

Linehan is the Register’s managing editor and welcomes tips and comments at jlinehan@brookingsregister.com.