A chance taker in a fluid world.

A decade ago, the Whitfield County School District in northern Georgia was a relatively insulated community. But as thousands of Mexican workers claimed jobs in the county's burgeoning carpet industry, the district began to understand the meaning of diversity.

By last year the system--now at 13,500 students and counting--was serving a Latino enrollment of 30 percent. When the superintendent retired, the school board knew it needed a leader who could guide it through a supremely challenging growth spurt. Rather than promote an insider as it had three times in the previous 12 years, the board looked outside and found Katie Brochu.

To hear board chair Chuck Oliver tell it, Brochu's combination of confidence and contagious enthusiasm made her impossible to pass up. "If she stood up in a crowd and grabbed a flag, everyone would follow after her," he says.

Her credentials weren't bad either. She earned her first superintendency in her early 30s in Sumter County, Ga. Three years later, she was the state's superintendent of the year and one of four finalists for national superintendent of the year.

In Whitfield County, Brochu hit the ground running. She had to. The district opened a new vocational and technical high school last fall and will open two more schools this year. And two additional schools, including another high school, are on the drawing board.

Equally important is expanding the vision of a school district shell-shocked by the rapid change. Brochu is embracing the Georgia Project, through which the district employs nine teachers from Mexico to help with the transition of incoming students. She is organizing school design teams composed of individuals with different roles who bounce ideas off one another.

Brochu is willing to take chances, sometimes allowing what she calls "the strongest leader of the minute"--the one with the best idea--to emerge. This year she approved a middle school principal's plan to run single-gender classes.

Brochu credits her work ethic to her Irish Catholic family, which struggled to make ends meet on Long Island in the 1960s. Her father worked at a variety of jobs, from running a bar to selling used cars. Sometimes the money stretched thin. Brochu recalls learning at school one day about a canned food drive for the poor. She answered the door that night and found out her family was among the recipients.

Her father died of cancer when she was in high school, but left her with a strong directive.

"Very, very clearly my father indicated that anything can be taken from anyone at any time," she says. "Every day you just wake up and think, 'What can I do to make this better?'"

Her mother gave her a whole different angle, leaving her home in Pennsylvania to become a Rockette on Broadway, even though at 5-foot-3 she didn't meet the troupe's height standard.

Brochu inherited both her mother's stature and her determination.

She competed in basketball, volleyball and track and ran on the boys' cross country team in high school. She threw the javelin at Central Michigan University.

The sports focus still permeates her family, ranging from her eldest brother, who is athletic director at the University of Notre Dame, to the youngest of her three sons, who plays the chanticleer mascot at Coastal Carolina University.

She understands the transformative power of athletics, and, true to form, she is thinking about how to harness it for education.

"If you can marshal the support beyond the Friday night lights, you've got something," she says.

Paul Riede is an editor with The Post-Standard in Syracuse, N.Y. E-mail: [e-mail]

BIO STATS: KATIE BROCHU

Currently: superintendent, Whitfield County Schools, Dalton, Ga.

Previously: superintendent, York School District One, York, S.C.

Age: 47

Greatest influence on career: My father passed away when I was 16 and made me promise that I would find a way to continue my education beyond high school. He stressed to me during his last hours that education is the only thing you can keep forever. My mother, who had moved from home as a teen-ager to become a Rockette in New York for awhile, completed her GED when I was in high school.

Best professional day: The day I defended my dissertation and was congratulated as "doctor" by my committee. I didn't think it could get better. Yet on the way home I stopped to buy a Mazda Miata. My mother said, "I don't know which your father would have been most proud of--the degree or the car!"

Books at bedside: The World Is Flat by Thomas L. Friedman; Good to Great for the Social Sectors by Jim Collins; Creating Great Schools by Phillip Schlechty; The Medici Effect by Frans Johansson; and Orchid Beach by Stewart Woods

Biggest blooper: On a winter night in York, S.C., the evening weatherman predicted a light snow. I awakened every hour from midnight on to find no falling snow. At 5 a.m. I contacted my superintendent colleagues to confirm school would go on. As the buses arrived around 7:30 a.m., I felt a few flurries. By 8:30 a.m. a serious amount of snow was falling--enough to send students back home. Because of icy conditions, my last student was delivered home via four-wheel drive emergency vehicle at 2:30 p.m.

A key reason I'm an AASA member: Without question, the networking. Being a member of AASA has allowed me to grow through the professional relationships that I have made. These relationships extend beyond the conferences and workshops. They are lifelong and continue to make a significant mark on me. I would never consider being a superintendent without the support of this organization.