‘We are SE. We Win! J.S.’ Fuller honored with retirement celebration

It was a job that almost never was for Coach Ewell Fuller — principal of Stanhope Elmore.

The Stanhope Elmore position was advertised twice. It was the second job posting. Fuller wasn’t too confident in getting the job. He didn’t get the Redland Elementary School principal’s job when he applied. He didn’t get a middle school principal position either.

“I prayed about it, prayed about it, and prayed about it,” Fuller said.  “I talked to my wife, Anna, multiple times about it. I finally decided to put in for it,”

Elmore County Schools superintendent Richard Dennis was surprised to see Fuller’s name there mainly because Fuller is Wetumpka High School.

Fuller showed up to the interview with clothing he was not comfortable in.

“I didn't have many ties and that sort of thing, but I scrambled together something,” Fuller said. I get back to the house and take that stuff off. I had told a friend I was going to interview. He met me at the house afterwards with a cowboy coke. So I'm sitting there, sitting by the pool. My phone rings.”

It’s someone relaying a message to Fuller that Dennis wants to see him. Fuller finds a pair of khakis two sizes too small, a pink shirt and red tie to wear to meet Dennis.

“I walk in there and he's going through all these plans for the atrium at Stanhope Elmore and everything else, flipping through all these things, blah, blah, blah,” Fuller said. “He gets to the end and he says, ‘Well, what do you think?’ I said, ‘Yes, sir.’ He said, ‘Can you handle it?’ ‘Yes, sir.’ I have no clue what he was talking about.”

Dennis made the recommendation to the Elmore County Board of Education to make Fuller the principal of Stanhope Elmore. Fuller said it was God’s plan.

“It brought me back focus and purpose,” Fuller said. “I've never been to a place where I felt more wanted.”

There would be trials and tribulations. Before the atrium could be built, mud frequently slid down the hill between buildings where students walked to change classes, go to the lunchroom or the front office. During renovations of the cafeteria, Fuller helped serve lunch in the atrium for almost two years. He saw fires and raw sewage seeping up from manhole covers between the school’s buildings.

Johanna Angelo was there too. Even though Angelo has moved up to an instructional coach at another school.

“I've joked around and said we are trauma bonded,” Angelo said. “The bond is so great that I’ll have his back anywhere. It’s just like he had our back. You tell me where to be and I’ll scrap.”

Angelo and Fuller planned the funerals of two students following their unexpected and tragic deaths within a week. The next year it wasn’t uncommon for one to visit the other.

“I'm not a crier, but we would go in to talk about something and something would pop up,” Angelo said. “We would literally just sit and cry together. It didn't matter who started it. We would just sit and cry. Then somebody would be like, ‘Okay, we've got this,’ and we move on. We are now each other's crutches.”

Fuller let Angelo do her thing teaching AP classes, coaching softball and helping other teachers.

“He let me speak and influence as a school leader,” Angelo said. “When I got my new position, he asked to call me to tell me I got it. He wanted to be the one to deliver that good news to me. That's the relationship that we have. We are constantly picking each other up and finding a way for each other to be better.”

Fuller trained many assistant principals in his time at Stanhope Elmore High School. Including his replacement — Wes Dunsieth who once served as the Mustangs baseball coach and left, but not for greener pastures.

“I will say probably being the only person that's ever been fired, rehired, and then replaced the person that fired and rehired them,” Dunsieth said. “We have a great relationship. He's been a great mentor to me. I appreciate him.”

Fuller’s wife Anna said she doesn’t have a honey-do list yet for her husband. 

“He won’t be still for long,” she said. “He has to be busy doing something.”

Fuller loved his job as principal. He loved his staff, teachers and students more. But he realized he couldn’t keep the pace up that he had established over the years. Fuller said he could sit in his office and gone through motions and such.

“I felt like it was a time in my life where it was time for someone else with more energy that can pick it up and take it forward. I found myself getting a little bit stagnant on some things I should have been addressing that I wasn't addressing, or that I wasn't doing it wholeheartedly. I found myself finding reasons or thinking to myself, ‘Man, I don't want to go to that tonight, or don't want to do this.’ I would still go do it and that sort of thing. I could just feel myself getting tired. I'm just telling you, it will wear you out the stress of it and the responsibility. It was just time for me to step down. It doesn't mean that I don't love the school. We are SE. We WIN!! J.S.”