Randy Engle credits sports especially the coaches he's been exposed to over the years with getting him interested in a career in education.

As a result of the impact coaches made on him, "I knew I wanted to coach someday," he said.He also knew he wanted to work with students and help them make good choices.Engle, the assistant principal of the Penn Kidder Campus of the Jim Thorpe Area School District, was named the "2015 State Assistant Principal of the Year" by the Pennsylvania Association of Elementary and Secondary School Principals.That award will be presented during the association's state conference on Oct. 18-20 at the Penn Stater Conference Center Hotel in State College.Meanwhile, Engle was also invited to the annual conference of the National Association of Secondary School Principals on April 15-17 in Washington D.C. He is in the running for the National Assistant Principal of the Year honors.Engle has been assistant principal at Penn Kidder Campus for the past six years. Previously he worked as dean of students for five years.He was nominated by former school principal Brian Gasper, who has since been named superintendent of schools in the Jim Thorpe district.The Pennsylvania Assistant Principal of the Year Award also called the Robert E. Lavely Award is given to an assistant principal "who has demonstrated meritorious service to their secondary level school and community," said Jacqueline Clarke Havrilla, the state organization's president.Engle is a lifelong resident of Carbon County. He and his wife Sharon, who is a junior high math teacher, have a son, Robert, who is a freshman at Penn State University, and a stepson, Cory, a doctoral student in research psychiatry at Penn State.He graduated from Kutztown University with a masters in sports management. He is a graduate of the United States Sports Academy and earned an education leadership degree from Wilkes University.A dream came true for Engle when he was named the school's head basketball coach in 1990, a position he held for seven seasons.On his state recognition, the soft-spoken Engle said, "At first I didn't know how to react. It's an honor because of such a good staff that I have. They go above and beyond. Without the staff in this district, there's no way this award could have happened."As an example of his staff's proactive involvement, Engle said he had to come up with a way to improve students' test scores. He asked teachers for help on this matter.He gave special praise to Kathy Doll, curriculum coordinator; Lisa Warren, education intervention coordinator; and assistants Stacie Gulla, and Kristen O'Donnell..Engle said the two main programs in the school that helped him attain the award are the Schwebs Program, which recognizes students for positive things they do, and the BAMMM program, which is an acronym for Books Are Magnificent, Marvelous, Magical."We have a committee that gets together mostly to talk about reading ideas and things to use with their students as well as an accelerated reading program and summer reading," Engle said.With the accelerated reading program, Engle said some students advanced by as much as two grade levels.During the summer, Jim Thorpe students received a second place state reading prize in a reading program sponsored by Scholastic Books.The students read an accumulative 387,165 minutes. Only Gettysburg students fared better, reading a combined 461,000 minutes.This will be the fourth year for the program, which is coordinated by teachers, paraprofessionals and volunteers.For consideration of the national award, Engle had to write a paper on "Something I do against the trend," he said.He wrote a disciplinary paper with a science teacher. He said the program keeps a paper trail on disciplinary action on students, not to punish them but to have parents and teachers involved in making a positive academic experience.The award recipient said he has a lot of people to thank for his success in his educational career.He said it was Jeff James, a former junior high school principal, who encouraged him to go into administration.Andy Altemose, the first principal at the Penn Kidder Campus, got him involved in administration ad dean of students.Engle got his degree while Larry Larthey was principal and served for three years under him. He then was assistant principal under Gasper for seven years."Like coaching, you give the players the tools to work with and they just manage to make this school a positive place," he said about his staff.