Hands-on Expertise With Thrifty Thinking.

The first remarkable fact you need to know about Larry Vick is that he has spent exactly half his lifetime wearing the title of school superintendent. At 26 1/2 years and counting, he's attained a tenure level that ties him for second in superintendent longevity in Tennessee.

A lot of savvy has accumulated during that time, and Vick, who'll turn 53 on Dec. 7, has distinguished himself as an innovative yet cost-conscious school system leader who finds some of his greatest inspiration in the pages of Popular Science, The applied knowledge gleaned from the latter publication has served him exceedingly well in the two school districts where he's spent most of his time: the Paris Special School District and the Carroll County School District, both in the northwest corner of the state, almost equidistant from Memphis and Nashville.

In Paris, where he's midway through his 14th year at the helm of the 1,500-student K-8 district, Vick personally installed what at the time was considered a novel, cutting-edge device to curtail rowdy student behavior aboard the district's school buses. After spying an early version of a video camera nearly a decade ago, the superintendent admits, "Right off I realized its potential." So Vick ordered a unit directly from the RCA factory in Memphis, and with one-way mirrors purchased from the local glass shop and a few plastic file boxes from the Wal-Mart outside town, he fashioned the first video surveillance system for buses in the Volunteer State.

Once camera mounts were affixed to the three most problem-riddled bus routes (he continuously rotated the single lens among them), Vick presented the videotaped findings at public meetings of the school board, leading to a predictable turnaround in decorum. But his experiment in behavior modification ended prematurely, just three months after it began, when the Tennessee Department of Safety ordered the camera boxes removed on the grounds they weren't duly approved equipment for school buses.

Vick argued the merits of his homemade solution with state officials until he says they "threatened to call the highway patrol to stop all our buses."

His personal fancy for the latest technology has contributed to other advances. It was Vick's far-fetched notion in the early 1980s to use a personal computer--in his case, an Apple IIe with two floppy drives--for the school district's payroll and bookkeeping. When a hard drive finally became available, Vick installed it himself, but only after discovering errors in the esoteric instruction booklet that the manufacturer wasn't aware of.

When word spread about his technological tendencies, Vick soon found himself accepting evening and weekend consulting work from other school districts across western Tennessee.

"One great thing about being in a small system is the opportunities you have to be hands-on," he says. "I'm fortunate, I'd say, to have an idea today and be able to do something about it tomorrow."

Because he's sometimes called to the state capital to lend his expertise, Vick contrasts the flexibility he relishes in a small community like Paris with the protracted bureaucratic processes at the state level to accomplish modest reforms in policies and programs.

For two years, Vick chaired the Superintendents' Study Council, an advisory panel that meets monthly with Tennessee's commissioner of education. He also is the only individual to have served as president of both the Tennessee Association of School Supervisors and Administrators and the Tennessee Organization of School Superintendents.

Most recently, Vick served as the guiding spirit behind the combination elementary school/civic center that opened in August 1999, a joint venture between the city of Paris and the school board. The sparkling facility includes a 600-seat theater, replete with orchestra pit and rear projection system, and the state's only indoor swimming pool in an elementary school.

The building recently was picked by the state school boards association as School of the Year, adding further to Vick's reputation for innovative and thrifty thinking. Colleagues often seek him out for news of his latest inspiration, says Joe Williams, a retired superintendent and former county school board chairman. "They touch base with him before they do anything about their own problems."

Jay Goldman is the editor of The School Administrator.

BIO STATS: LARRY VICK

Currently: superintendent, Paris Special School District, Paris, Tenn.

Earlier: superintendent, Carroll County School District, Huntingdon, Tenn.

Age: 52

Greatest Influence on Career: When I was a 26-year-old science teacher with no administrative experience, a principal and supervisor saw my potential and encouraged me to run for county superintendent.

Best Professional Day: The day the elementary school I proposed and played a large role in designing was named School of the Year.

Books at Bedside: Outdoor spotting publications and books and magazines on horses, hunting, tennis, field trials, popular science and woodworking.

Biggest Blooper: I devised a "simple-on-paper" transportation plan with a shuttle system and a centralized transfer station. On opening day we placed many students on the wrong buses, requiring three hours to get some students home. Parents had the police stopping buses searching for their kids. My wife and I spent all night making bus number pins to put on every kid the next day.

A Reason Why I'm an AASA Member: The superintendency can be a very lonely place. AASA gives administrators a place to share our professional and, to some extent, personal lives.