By Fancy Robbins
When Mrs. Julie Blakely wants to talk to her best friend, she doesn’t have to call her or make plans. She can go on a short walk from her classroom to the office and see her there.
Blakely, a Delta High School social studies teacher, and principal Ms. Joey Gossett have been best friends for about 30 years. They met during Blakely’s first year of teaching English when Gossett was a student teacher in English at Delta as a college student.
Then, they had no idea they would be reunited a few years later, both teaching English at Delta. They hit it off, sharing the same humor and competitiveness in the word game Scrabble.
Being friends for so long, you start to learn everything about them.
“She is equipped to handle just about any situation,” Blakely said. “She can be firm but also understanding and truly wants Delta to be a fun and educational place for our students.”
Gossett has been an assistant principal at Delta for 14 years. After former principal Chris Conley took a new job as superintendent at Cowan Community Schools, she was appointed as the new principal on Aug. 29.
She is the 16th principal in school history.
After graduating from Wes-Del High School in Gaston, Gossett attended Ball State University. She graduated from Ball State with a bachelor’s degree in English education.
She taught at numerous schools. She started at the Muncie Area Career Center’s teenage mother program, then Sylvan Learning Academy. After Sylvan, she worked at Anderson High School for one semester then Muncie Central High School for a full year.
In the fall of 1999 she took a position as an English teacher at Delta. Eleven years later, she was promoted to assistant principal.
“I had [being an administrator] in mind (when she was a teacher), but I didn’t know I would end up here [as a principal],” Gossett said.
Her top role as an assistant principal was dealing with discipline and attendance. Until they hire a second assistant principal, she will continue to do some assistant principal tasks, such as keeping track of students’ attendance.
As a principal, she has to adapt to doing new tasks such as setting up meetings and being the school’s leader.
“I’ve had some long days just trying to keep up with everything,” Gossett said. “I think it’s just another level, so all the things that I relied on Mr. Conley for, I have to do now.”
Another task she has to do is with first-year assistant principal Mr. Brian Brewer. They are looking for a new assistant principal and have interviewed candidates.
They will choose a couple of candidates for a second interview, then once they feel like they have someone who will do a good job they will introduce him or her to Delaware Community Schools Supt. Greg Kile.
In the future Gossett plans to create more programs within the school to help students in the workforce and wants to start a program with student leaders in the building.
“Right now I just want things to continue to flow smoothly,” she said. “(Mr. Conley) left us in a very good place so for the immediate time I would like to see that continue.”
Conley and Gossett worked together as administrators for more than a decade, so she also has to adapt to not just losing a co-worker but a friend and mentor.
“He was always a person I could bounce ideas off of. We would talk about what we wanted to do with this and that,” Gossett said. “Mr. Brewer is new so he fills that role, but he doesn’t yet have that background so I do miss Mr. Conley.”
On top of having a busy job as a principal, she lives on a farm, about 20 miles from Delta, which can be time consuming. Her 31-year-old son Jake farms the ground and raises show pigs.
She also has chickens which she helps with sometimes. But since becoming principal, she’s eased her way out of doing the daily farm chores.
Gossett is a rock and roll enthusiast. She said she’s been to too many concerts to count, with the most recent one being Def Leppard, Cheaptrick and Journey in Cleveland, Ohio.
Gossett and Blakely also share a love for the genre. Blakely has been to numerous rock and roll concerts, but they’ve never been to one together.
