Coppell Chronicle Vol. 3, No. 50
Superintendent Honored for His Leadership • Coppell High Teams Get New Set of Rivals • CFBISD Trustees Deride Chaplains Bill • Congressional Candidates Turn in Receipts
Longtime CBS Sunday Morning host Charles Osgood died last month at the age of 91. During one of the many tributes that his former program aired last week, Osgood said this: “Short words. Short sentences. Short paragraphs. There’s nothing that can’t be improved by making it shorter.”
I try to take those words of wisdom to heart as I craft this newsletter, but there’s so much I want to tell you!
Superintendent Honored for His Leadership
In May of 2014, about a year and a half after my family moved to Coppell, I posted this on Facebook:
“Small-town life: We went out to dinner and ran into a family whose son I've coached for two Coppell Baseball Association seasons. When I asked the waiter for our check, he told me that family had already paid for our meal.”
The father of that family had been living in Coppell for a quarter of a century by that point. Brad Hunt moved here in 1990, when he was hired as a teacher at Coppell High School. His subsequent titles in Coppell ISD have included Coppell Middle School West Assistant Principal, Director of Human Resources, Coppell High School Principal, and Assistant Superintendent for Administrative Services. He was given the district’s top job in 2017, which makes him the senior superintendent in Dallas County.
Along the way, he’s helped many Coppell ISD families besides mine in much more impactful ways than picking up a check. That’s why the Coppell Chamber of Commerce honored Hunt last night with the Cliff Long Leadership Award. The presentation included a video featuring testimonials from several students and educators.
When Hunt accepted the award from its namesake and two of the other previous winners — former Coppell Mayor Karen Hunt (no relation) and Metrocrest Services CEO Tracy Eubanks — he said the first place he lived in Coppell was the Wellington Place apartments on MacArthur Boulevard.
“I can just remember going back to that little apartment every night and just being on my knees and thanking God for me finding Coppell ISD and Coppell ISD finding me,” Hunt said. “I would never in a million years think that I would be in a position to receive an award like this, let alone be the superintendent of Coppell. Coppell has given me so much.”
Besides a distinguished career, Coppell ISD has given him a family. He met his wife, Janay Hunt, when she taught at Town Center Elementary. Their daughter, who graduated from Coppell High last year, is a freshman at Texas A&M. (“Whoop!” yelled the Aggies in attendance.) Their son attends the Coppell High School Ninth Grade Campus.
“How special it is for Janay and I to have our children be a part of Coppell ISD,” Hunt said.
Here are few more notes from last night’s Coppell Chamber of Commerce Awards and Community Gala:
• The other major awards made me feel really connected to this community. I’ve been writing annual checks to the Large Business of the Year (AAA) for most of my adult life. The Small Business of the Year award was shared by two winners; I’ve had treats at one (Hat Creek Burger Company) and treatments at the other (Legacy ER & Urgent Care). And although I’ve not yet hired the Emerging Business of the Year (Ace Handyman Services), owner Stephen Cortez and his wife sat next to me and my wife at the gala.
• Leadership of the chamber’s Board of Directors was transferred from DFW Airport’s Kori Stolar to AAA’s Daniel Armbruster. Hey, the airport won Large Business of the Year last year, and AAA won it this year. That’s quite a set of consecutive coincidences.
• Mayor Wes Mays made sure everybody in the room knew that Coppell and other cities are suing Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar over his proposed changes to how sales taxes for online transactions are distributed. That 2021 lawsuit, which is supposed to finally go to trial in May, is old news to longtime Chronicle subscribers, but here’s a bit of breaking news: The mayor and his wife, Linda Mays, became grandparents yesterday.
Coppell High Teams Get New Set of Rivals
The University Interscholastic League unveiled its realigned districts at 9 o’clock on Thursday morning. With football in mind, I tried to break the news about Coppell High School’s latest rivals to the tight end/defensive end who lives in my house. I texted him at 9:10, and this is how he responded:
“i knew at 9:02 buddy”
(Punctuation and capital letters are for old people, apparently.)