Dougherty County School System Superintendent Kenneth Dyer: I'm supposed to be here.

Editor's Note: First in a three-part series.

ALBANY — A wise person once laid some serious truth on Kenneth Dyer.

After Dyer had accepted the job as superintendent of the Dougherty County School System, he was offered this bit of wisdom: "Son, the three toughest jobs in any community are police chief, district attorney and school superintendent."

As Dyer prepares to kick off his eighth year as head of the 13,000-student school district with the start of the 2024-25 school year Wednesday, he admits that he's often thought of the truth in that admonition.

"This job was never in my plans," Dyer said during a lengthy conversation that covered pretty much every aspect of the career he's settled into. "I studied accounting because I had a knack for numbers. I never had any thought of getting into education; my career has always been about finance. I didn't apply for this job. It was offered to me."

But, Dyer admits, even with the inherent headaches that come with the position, the superintendent's position has grown on him, primarily because it offers him the opportunity to have the kind of impact he never really dreamed he could have.

"With my modest background growing up, something like this was never considered," he reiterated. "But what's happened over these past seven years is that I've been given the opportunity to inspire and help equip students to see the endless possibilities that lay before them. Statistics say that, with my upbringing, I cannot be doing this. But here I am.

"I want the students in the system to understand that they too can grasp these possibilities, they can change their trajectory. That's the thing that gets me up every morning. I truly believe I'm supposed to be here. This is an assignment for me. It's somebody else that put me here."

Dyer spent his formative years in Harris County near Columbus. He and his single-parent mom shared a home with extended family that had been the birthplace of his grandfather in 1918. Dyer was uprooted and joined his mom in Albany, where she'd taken a position at Marine Corps Logistics Base-Albany, after he finished the eighth grade.

"It was a tough transition, moving from rural Harris County to a big city like Albany," Dyer said. "I remember missing the bus my first day of school and walking from Albany High School as far as AJ's Oyster Bar before having to stop and call my mom to come and get me."

Dyer transferred to Westover High School for the final two years of high school after his family moved into a home that Dyer's mom, Lillie Patrick, and his step-dad live in today.

As high school wound down, Dyer was pretty sure he would enlist in the Army, just as his four uncles had done. But shortly before graduating Westover, he took the SAT and, based on his score and his grade-point average, was offered a presidential scholarship at Albany State University. He became actively involved in student life at the historically black university and through an internship had the opportunity to take a lucrative job with State Farm Insurance.

He turned the offer down.

"I wanted to get my master's degree while I was working, but they were going to send me to Bloomington (Minnesota) for the first three years of the job," Dyer notes. "As I weighed this personal goal against an opportunity to make a large salary, I remembered the words of one of my mentors who warned me against getting trapped in the 'golden handcuffs' that careers sometimes offer. I knew if I took the position and started making he kind of money they were offering, I'd be stuck there.

"I told the recruiter I was turning the position down, and he asked me why. I said, 'I don't want to work for State Farm the rest of my life.' Which probably wasn't the kind of thing you say to a guy who I'm sure would be working for State Farm the rest of his life."

Dyer took a position in the mortgage lending industry — that indeed paid a lot less than the position he'd been offered — and started work on his master's degree at North Florida College. He transferred to Albany State a short while later, finishing requirements for his master's and making contacts that would change the direction of his career path.

After the famed Flood of '94 in Albany left ASU under a deluge of flood water, the university needed someone to head up a $148.6 million flood recovery project. The university called on Dyer, who helped prove the university was indeed unsinkable. He was later named vice president of fiscal affairs at the university and worked there for the next decade.

"My work at Albany State allowed me to achieve one of my goals," he said. "At 26, I became the youngest finance VP in the University System of Georgia."

Dyer was recruited to private Wiley College in Texas, but a short while later ASU again came calling. Then-President Portia Holmes-Shields asked Dyer to help develop a privatized housing program at his alma mater.

"(Previous ASU President) Dr. Billy C. Black helped me make up my mind to come back to Albany State," Dyer said. "He told me, 'I understand you have a choice to make, but I want you to remember: Albany State is like your mama, and when mama says to come home, you come home.'"

After three years at ASU, Dyer worked in private project management. But then-Albany City Manager Al Lott asked Dyer to apply for the city's vacant deputy financial director job, and officials at the school system asked him to consider the finance director position there. He worked with the city for a period, but members of the school system kept encouraging him to join them.

It was late School Board member Milton "June Bug" Griffin who finally talked Dyer into taking the position. That led to one of the most impactful relationships of his professional career: his tenure serving with late School Superintendent Butch Mosely.

"I was supposed to interview Butch for the interim superintendent position, so I called him up," Dyer said of his initial conversation with Mosely. "Butch said, 'Call me back; I'm frying fish right now, and I don't want them to burn."

When Mosely came on as, first interim, and then permanent superintendent, he and Dyer, along with Mosely's right-hand man, Jack Willis, forged a relationship that extended beyond their duties in the school system.

"We became close friends," Dyer said. "It wasn't just a work thing. I went deep sea fishing with him; we often had meals together. See, the day he was hired, he said, 'I'm going to trust you until you give me a reason not to. And I ask you to trust me until I give you a reason not to.' From that point on, we had many frank, honest — and sometimes tough — discussions, but we worked them out because of the mutual trust we had for each other."

When Mosely became ill and decided to step down from the superintendent's post a year before his contract ran out, he nominated Dyer to take over his post, and the Dougherty School Board decided to heed Mosely's request without calling for a national search to fill the position.

Dyer became superintendent in February of 2017 and started work in July that year. He quickly learned that the step up was a giant one.

"I worked closely with Dr. Mosely, so I came in with confidence," Dyer said. "But I learned soon enough that there's a big difference in sitting in the seat and sitting in the seat next to the seat. Everyone wants a piece of you, and every decision you make is going to be questioned by someone.

"There are times when it really wears you down. But I'll say this: I do this job out of the love I have for Dougherty County. I don't know if I would go through all this for any other community."

Since taking the position, Dyer has been named to Gov. Bryan Kemp's Superintendents Advisory Round Table, to the Teachers' Retirement System of Georgia Board of Trustees, the Georgia School Superintendents Association's Board of Directors, the board of the national American Association of School Administrators, Board Chairman of Albany Technical College and a number of other prestigious local, state and national positions.

"I was the first college graduate in my family; that's something I'm very proud of," Dyer said. "Despite my modest upbringing, I've found in my life that education has been the great equalizer. That's what I want our kids to realize. They may have hardships, but I'm living proof that they can achieve whatever dreams they have. I think they relate to me because I embody that."

Part 2: The DCSS today.