Bruce Schmidt Ready for New AD Role

Laramie High School officially has its' new AD. Bruce Schmidt was formally approved for the post at Wednesday night's Albany County School District School Board meeting. The veteran teacher and coach will step into a new position that's designed to focus more on the athletics and activities at LHS, and he's already looking ahead.

Bruce Schmidt says my vision is, "I'd like to keep some our kids in school and in town more. With the bond being passed, and the new school being built, we're going to push to host more events. I think with all of our activities, the vision I have is to do what's best for our kids."

His move into a new position comes after 30 years of teaching and coaching, which includes the last 11 at Laramie High School. Why the interest now?

Schmidt said, "I did some soul searching, I went home and though quite a bit about it, ran it by some of my family, and basically we felt it'd be something that I'm pretty good at. It's been a situation I felt like I've wanted to try in the past, and with the way it opened up, I just thought it might be a great time for me to take my shot at it."

Laramie High School Principal and acting-AD Kim Sorenson said Bruce is absolutely the answer, "He has a lot of experience out here in the west, Laramie in particular. The other coaches all like him. The teachers all trust him, and the kids really respect him, quite a bit. Bruce is a friendly individual, and he's knowledgeable. Most importantly, he's honest to a point. He cares enough to confront, he'll listen, and I think he solves a lot of problems for us right now. I think he's a really good bridge from the job that Mr. Lewis did to where we want to go in the future."

As for the switch out of a full-time administrative-AD position, Sorenson said, "When we started realistically looking at it, we started thinking, well why? What is it that we gain from that? You immediately start picking up other aspects of the job, and those are the things that keep you from focusing on the AD piece."

Instead, they will have Schmidt teach two classes. They are set for first thing in the morning, and he will still have contact with the kids. Then, he'll have plenty of time to concentrate on all the different aspects of being an AD.

Sorenson added, "With it being non-administration, for the rest of his day and into the evenings when we have contests, he can just focus on activities and athletics. He's not getting behind in anything else. I think it's a great position, and it's an incredible upgrade to what we've been doing."

As for achieving success in his new position, Schmidt believes the ground work has already been done, as he thanked Mr. Lewis and Mr. Sorenson.

Schmidt says, "My goals are just to help our kids, do what we can for our kids, and to have the best events we can in our community and for our kids. Hopefully that's a situation that we can get going."

He also realizes that there will tough tasks ahead. Schmidt says, "The greatest challenge is to bring some of the programs that have not been as successful, to bring them up athletically. Then, to keep our clubs and our organizations where they're at, or even improve on that. We have to make sure everything's done well for all of them."

Schmidt will begin his new assignment on July 1. Though, Kim Sorenson joked that he wished he started yesterday.