A presidential possibility

Priscilla Bell will retire as North Idaho College president this summer.

Jay Lee, NIC's vice president for instruction and one of the most qualified candidates on hand to replace Bell, has accepted the top job elsewhere. In six weeks, Lee will take the helm at Northeastern Junior College in Colorado.

We wish Lee well. His tenure in Coeur d'Alene might have been short, just under four years, but he bolstered NIC's instructional quality during one of the most challenging periods in the college's history, with expansive student growth met head-on by funding challenges.

But this editorial is not an ode to a good man going elsewhere.

It's an introduction of a good man who has been here all along, who just might be the best person to lead North Idaho College.

His name is Jim Hammond. Yes, that Jim Hammond.

Allow us to share with you more than you might have known about the man.

Hammond holds a master's degree in education, was a teacher in Post Falls from 1973 through 1977 and then moved into administration as a school principal in Post Falls and Spokane until 1996. In the meantime, he wove public service into the fabric of his career. Hammond served on the Post Falls planning and zoning commission from 1979 until 1981, when he was elected to the City Council. He served the council from 1981 to 1990 and as its president from 1984 to '90. In 1990 Hammond was elected Post Falls mayor, a position he held until 1996.

At that point Hammond rolled up his sleeves and, for the next decade, worked as Post Falls city administrator. That job gave him hands-on experience at balancing not just budgets, but community needs and dreams.

Having also been vice president of the Idaho State Board of Education, a member of the University of Idaho Advisory Board and chairman of the Idaho State Charter School Commission, he has important connections with all levels of education statewide. And his experience as an Idaho state senator since 2006 - a position he would relinquish if he became NIC president - provides a unique link to one of the college's primary funding sources.

Hammond knows the community, inside and out. Unlike any outsider, he would need no time to build bridges with educational, civic and business leaders; he's done that over the past four decades. And there's little worry about Hammond using the presidential post as a professional jumping-off point. He's a local boy who has no higher aspiration than to serve right here.

The NIC Board of Trustees has committed a minimum of $30,000 to a consultant helping with the presidential search. That won't be money wasted if the search turns up someone better qualified to lead our community college through these challenging times, matching on-campus initiatives of excellence with students', taxpayers' and donors' ability to fund them. Nor will it be money wasted if it shows that the most qualified NIC president already lives in Coeur d'Alene.