Life Lessons.Principally Speaking: Memoirs from the Life of a High School Principal

In this compilation of anecdotes, Dr. Charlie Burry reflects on his 45-year career in public education. He remembers the people who guided him toward the profession, those who influenced him, and the experiences that shaped him as both a man and an educator.

Burry spent nearly a third of his career serving as principal of Hartsville High School, his alma mater, in Hartsville, South Carolina, and his experiences are related here. He also served as church deacon, and wrote devotions that found their way into the book, along with responses to significant world events. He includes principles of The Red Fox Renaissance, the fundamental premises upon which Hartsville High School became a great school again, as well as remarks he shared at commencement exercises. Finally, he reflects on his personal life―his hobby as a quote collector, his career in athletics, and his post-retirement search for identity and purpose.

Life Lessons...Principally Speaking teaches the life lessons learned by a man blessed to live most of his life in a special place called Hartsville, South Carolina. The lessons he learned there, and the lessons he taught at Hartsville High School for forty years as a teacher, counselor, coach, and principal impacted many lives, and will continue to do so through this book.

Dr. Charlie Burry, Jr., is a native of Nevada, Missouri. His family lived in Grand Junction, Colorado, and Biloxi, Mississippi, before settling in Hartsville, South Carolina, in 1959. A child of avid readers, he developed a love for books which was nourished further when his father opened Burry Bookstore in 1972. A self-professed wordsmith, he enjoys the process of sharing his thoughts through the written word.

He is a 1969 graduate of Hartsville High School. He received his B.A. degree in History in 1973 from Furman University, a Master of Education (M.Ed.) degree from Francis Marion University (College) in 1976, and in 1993 completed his Doctor of Education (Ed.D.) degree in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of South Carolina. He began his teaching and coaching career in 1973 with the Department of Juvenile Justice at the South Carolina School for Boys in Florence, South Carolina, as a physical education teacher and at Francis Marion College as a graduate assistant basketball coach. He taught social studies and coached basketball and football at Gilbert High School in South Carolina before returning to Hartsville in 1978.

He taught US History and Sociology for nine years, was a guidance counselor for seventeen years, and became principal of Hartsville High School in July 2004. He coached in the Red Fox football program for 26 years, working as a varsity assistant from 1987 through 2003, and coached basketball and tennis at other times during a 31-year coaching career prior to becoming principal. He served as the AAAA Representative on the Executive Committee of the South Carolina High School League from 2014 until 2018, and was recognized by the South Carolina Athletic Administrators Association as the 2018 AAAA Principal of the Year. He was also honored with the 2014-15 Distinguished Principal Award by the Darlington County School District. He retired in June 2018, after 45 years in public education.

He is a member of First Baptist Church in Hartsville, taught Sunday school for a number of years, and chaired the Board of Deacons on three occasions. He enjoys watching sports, listening to music, reading, writing, kayaking on Black Creek, and spending time in the Blue Ridge Mountains near Saluda, North Carolina. He is married to a retired registered nurse, and they have two daughters, both graduates of Hartsville High School and Furman University, who are highly successful in their own personal and professional lives.