Midway Elementary Principal Announces Retirement

Midway Elementary School Principal Elizabeth “Gail” Stehle announces plans to retire at the end of the 2024-2025 school year. A veteran educator, Stehle began her career teaching fifth and sixth grades for seven years and serving as an assistant principal for four years in North Carolina. There she was named Teacher of the Year at Oxford Elementary, a school of 998 students. Under her leadership as assistant principal, Walter Bickett Elementary School earned the Super Safe Schools award, being one of only eleven schools in the state to receive the award that year. Her school also had the fastest growing achievement scores of all elementary schools in the state at that time. She was instrumental, as well, in moving into a new Walter Bickett School at a separate location in the county.

Stehle then moved to Beaufort County, SC, to serve as principal at Broad River Elementary School for four years. There, she met her husband, Roy. They moved to Kershaw County to be closer to her aging parents in North Carolina, but not too far from their coastal home. Stehle was principal at Wateree Elementary School for ten years and was named the 2014-2015 Principal of the Year for the district while there. She was instrumental in moving Wateree Elementary School into a new building. Stehle was named the principal of Midway Elementary in 2019.

After thirty-one years in education, Stehle says, “I want to spend more time with my family Education is more than a full-time job — it is a calling and a mission in life. My husband and I have invested a combined total of 85 years into education and, now that I am retiring, we will be able to invest more time into each other and the rest of the family. I have enjoyed this career, but my family and the coastline are calling my name!”