Andy Evans made his way through the halls of Kingfisher High School on Thursday morning, introducing himself to staff members.

Those who didn’t already know him soon will.

The Kingfisher Board of Education voted Wednesday night during a special meeting to hire Evans as the interim superintendent for the remainder of the 2024-25 school year.

The move was necessary due to the death of David Glover last month. Glover, superintendent since June 2022, had battled cancer for several years before passing away Sept. 14.

Evans asked staff members as he met them Thursday: “Is there anything you need from me?”

Helping staff work through the loss of Glover, said Evans, is part of his mission.

“We look forward to working through the year and getting things in order moving forward and helping the district in grieving the loss of Mr. Glover,” Evans told the KT&FP Wednesday night.

However, it’s not the only job with which the former Kingfisher Middle School principal is tasked.

After years of budget surplus, the school district is suddenly in a budget crunch.

A civil lawsuit settlement, attorneys’ fees, major projects and the previous week’s decision by the Kingfisher County Excise Board to provide the school district with the minimum budget allowed has leadership looking to tighten belts.

It’s a task for which Evans may be especially qualified.

For nearly 10 years, Evans has served as the financial services director at the Oklahoma Public School Resource Center.

That non-profit’s mission is to “drive transformation and increased academic achievement within Oklahoma’s public education system,” according to its website.

OPSRC covers five general areas of need for school districts: communications, finance, instructional technology, education law and teaching and learning.

Evans and his team covered the finance part of that.

As of Wednesday, Evans said he was working with 35 different schools on their budgets.

“I help them set up their budget, I help them evaluate their personnel, help them evaluate their revenue streams and help them evaluate what they need to be doing next and then we put it into a format where we can look at the different areas where the revenues and expenditures work out,” Evans said.

Evans called Kingfisher’s current budget situation “extra-ordinary.”

However, that didn’t shy him away from tossing his name in hat to help out the district.

And for good reason, he said.

“Kingfisher’s been really good to me and my family and I really believe strongly that I want the kids that are going through Kingfisher right now - particularly my two nephews - to have the same level of education and the same opportunities that my kids did when they went through school here,” Evans said.

Evans’ own children went through the district when he served here from August 1999 through June 2010.

He served in such roles as assistant principal, athletic director and KMS principal.

Evans left Kingfisher to take over as superintendent at Mountain View-Gotebo for three years.

It was there that Evans led the district through a budget situation that was unforeseen.

A mistake by the county assessor saw the district lose a large chunk of its budget.

“We had already started belt-tightening at Mountain View because they were over-staffed there,” Evans said. “But on April 13 whenever you found out you lost 35 to 40 percent of your budget, that will cause a guy to wake up.”

The district recovered the money the next year and Evans left it in good financial standing.

He was then the superintendent at Prague Public Schools for two years before joining the OPSRC in February 2015.

Evans said he still has some commitments with other school districts to help with their budgets, but will do so on a contract basis.

“I will be in the district five days a week, at activities and things like that,” he said. “I’m planning to function as a normal superintendent would.”

Evans, who lives in Kingfisher with his wife Beth, was one of four people interviewed by the board the previous week. He returned Wednesday for a second interview and was the only candidate to do so.

The board met with him in executive session for nearly two hours before voting unanimously to hire him.

“I believe Mr. Evans is invested in this community and wants to see continued success in the Kingfisher Public Schools system,” said board President Charles Walker. “I’m confident in his abilities and feel that his expertise in budget management and financial planning make him a great fit.

“Through his leadership, KPS will continue to thrive and provide our students with the excellent education they deserve.”

Evans was very visible on his first day - Thursday. He made his way through the different buildings, met with principals that morning, attending a Kingfisher Lions Club meeting and even stopped by the football team’s meal that evening.

Down the road, Evans knows the district has to put the brakes on expenditures in the months ahead.

The district spent more than $20 million last year, but was approved by the excise board to have $14.2 at its disposal for this fiscal year.

“Our primary discussion - and it’s going to be my primary discussion everywhere we go - is we’ve got $14.2 million,” Evans said. “The big thing for us is we’ve got to realize that we have got to make sure our budget is right-sized and we’ve got to get our budget to where it fits our school.”