Eureka High School’s new principal won’t have to drive far when he starts his new job with the Rockwood School District on July 1.
Corey Sink, 45, who was hired unanimously by the Rockwood Board of Education on Feb. 6, lives in unincorporated Eureka.
Sink said his proximity makes the job appealing to him.
“It’s that draw of just working in the community in which you live, serving the kids in the community in which you live,” he said.
Sink currently is assistant principal at Parkway West High School.
At Rockwood, he will replace Charlie Crouther, who has served as Eureka High principal for five years and is retiring.
Crouther’s salary is $146,761; Sink’s salary will be voted on during the March 5 school board meeting, communications coordinator David Morrison said. He said the typical high school principal salary starts at $140,000 and is set based on college degrees and experience.
Crouther said he knows he is leaving Eureka High School in good hands.
“He (Sink) is a people person,” Crouther said. “He’s got a great background. He wants to build relationships. He wants to be involved with the community. He’s already been to (Eureka High) sporting events.”
Sink said he was not looking for a new job, but he saw the opening and decided to apply. He said he likes the idea of working in the community where he lives and where his children attend school.
Sink and his family moved to Eureka from O’Fallon about seven years ago when looking for a new home.
“The plan at that point was to look for a house in Parkway (School District),” he said, because his children were already attending Parkway schools.
“(We) started looking for homes and the home search just led us to Eureka,” he said.
Sink and his wife, Molly, who also works in public education, have two sons, Asher, 15, currently a freshman at Eureka High School, and Ryder, 13, who is in seventh grade at LaSalle Springs Middle School. The couple have been married for 17 years.
Sink said he has spent time with Crouther and met with Eureka staff already.
“He (Crouther) has been so wonderful and welcoming,” Sink said.
Crouther is an accomplished trumpeter, who often plays the national anthem at school sporting events and has been known to walk the halls at Eureka High, horn in hand, to serenade teachers having birthdays or to make music-accompanied announcements.
Sink said he played trumpet in the seventh grade, but won’t be able to duplicate Crouther’s musical feats.
However, Sink said, he hopes to come up with some creative ways of his own to make announcements.
He said he looks forward to working with the high school students, especially kids he coached when they were junior Wildcats.
“I’ve coached the junior Wildcats since Ryder was in third, fourth grade,” he said.
Sink said he is already outfitted with Eureka colors.
“I probably already have more purple and gold than I do Columbia blue and red, which are the (Parkway) West colors,” he said.
Sink said he is also looking forward to the addition of the STEM wing currently being built onto the high school.
“It’s all about our community,” he said. “I want parents to want to move to Eureka because we have this place. Because of the neat stuff that their kids have the opportunity to do.”
Sink said he probably always knew he wanted to be a teacher, but he did not originally pursue a degree in it.
“Went to Mizzou majored in business; I have a degree in marketing from the business school at Mizzou,” he said.
He said he was working in Kansas City when he decided to attend Southeast Missouri State University in Cape Girardeau to earn this business education degree.
Sink’s first teaching job was in the St. Charles School District, where he later moved up to become assistant principal.
He started working in the Parkway School District in 2010. Sink earned a master’s degree in educational administration from Lindenwood University in 2004 and a doctorate of education from Lindenwood in 2010.