Mid-Prairie High School will be welcoming a new administrator starting this fall. Jay Strickland was hired in April to take over as principal from the departing Jim Cayton. Strickland, whose wife is originally from the Wellman area, had been in the Crawfordsville, Indiana, school district for the past 15 years, most recently as the middle school principal. He said they were wanting to move back to Iowa, so he had been keeping an ear to the ground for any openings in the area. When he found out about the opening at Mid-Prairie, he jumped at the opportunity.

Strickland said Mid-Prairie has already set the bar high, so his main goal is to keep the school moving forward and to build on what already works for the school. Strickland is a 2001 graduate of Goshen College, and his first job out of college was at Crawfordsville Middle School teaching social studies.