Meet our New Superintendent
Launch the media gallery 1 playerHello, to the communities of Ramona, Ochelata, Vera, and Oglesby.
My name is Steve Cantrell, and I am proud to have been named as the next superintendent of the Caney Valley school system. I come from a long line of educators and grew up on my family’s small cattle farm that was originally my grandfather's. The cows and equipment from the Olin Lewis Dairy were sold, but my family kept some land and began raising beef cows. I graduated from Collinsville High School, where my father was an elementary principal for 42 years. In the summer of 1992, I graduated from OSU with a B.S. in Agriculture Education, and obtained a job with Owasso Public Schools as a middle school science and social studies teacher.
I taught science at the Owasso Junior High and Mid-High for 11 years. It was there I met my beautiful wife, Michelle. She was substitute teaching one day when some of my students insisted I go meet her. What started as a set-up by 8th graders led to 26 wonderful years of marriage. Michelle then finished up her degree in education and began teaching at the Owasso 8th Gr. center. We spent our early years of marriage in a gym or on the football field where I coached 8th grade football and she was the varsity assistant for volleyball and track.
Along the way, I received my M.S. in Educational Administration from Northeastern State University, and we were blessed with two great kids. Parker is currently a senior at Oklahoma State University, majoring in Animal Science with a Business option. Karstyn, named after the OSU golf course Karsten Creek, recently graduated from Skiatook High School. She will be attending OSU in the fall where she hopes to attain a double major in Agricultural Education and Agricultural Communications.
In 2003, I began my career in administration as the assistant principal for student activities at Owasso High School. I gained valuable experience as an administrator at the 4th largest high school in Owasso which I took with me a few years later when named the principal at Skiatook’s Newman Middle School. Over the next few years, while working at Skiatook, raising two kids and managing a farm, I was able to finish my Educational Doctorate Degree in Educational Leadership from OSU.
My family manages a small cattle herd of registered Hereford, Maine Anjou, and commercial cows. Our kids grew up loving agriculture and have shown livestock since they were young. The FFA and Oklahoma Hereford Association have played a large role in teaching our kids the value of hard work. Because of this influence, our kids are active in the industry where our daughter is finishing her third term as a FFA Chapter President, is serving as the Oklahoma State Hereford Queen, and will begin serving the Oklahoma FFA Association as its Northeast Area Vice-President. Our son is finishing a term as the President of the Okla. Jr. Hereford Association, and works for the OSU Purebred Beef Cattle Center. In addition to our farm, we love to hunt, fish, cheer on our Oklahoma State Cowboys, and serve each week at the Life Church campus in Owasso.
I recently completed my 15th year as principal in Skiatook, and my 28th year overall in education. It was truly a bittersweet decision to leave Skiatook, I loved my job and the wonderful staff and students I was able to work with for so many years. However, the opportunity to lead a school district like Caney Valley made my decision easy. I look forward to working with the communities, parents, students, and staff to develop a culture at Caney Valley where expectations are high, school spirit is evident, and all parties are working together to achieve common goals.
As we begin this journey together, I want to reflect upon leaders of Caney Valley from the past such as; Jim Knox, Holly Ward, and Rocky Clarke. These individuals, and many more like them, set the tone for what Caney Valley can be. Through my experiences, however, I discovered that leadership is like driving a tractor. The straightest line can only be attained when you focus on what is in front of you. If you spend too much time looking back you will lose your bearings and end up where you do not want to be. We want to look to the future, while reflecting on the past. We will develop a vision for the district together. We will work hard, and we will strive to be better today than we were yesterday. We will set the example for our young kids that hard work pays dividends, and we will be conscientious stewards of the finances given to us by our patrons. Together, we will make Caney Valley the epitome of what other schools want to be like, and we will unite and proclaim:
WE ARE, CANEY VALLEY!