Kingfisher Public Schools will add some more Oklahoma Secondary Schools Activities Association flavor next month...and it will be a familiar face to many in the community.

The board of education on Monday approved hiring Chris Wilfong as the districtwide information technology director.

The move was made at the October regular meeting upon the recommendation of Superintendent David Glover.

Wilfong has been the IT director and senior software engineer at the OSSAA since 2010. Glover was an assistant director at the association for nine years before taking over at Kingfi sher in the summer.

Wilfong and his wife, Ellen, have lived in Kingfisher since 2016. Their youngest daughter, Melody, graduated from KHS in 2020.

“He’s going to organize and make sure all our programs and networks work efficiently,” Glover said.

“Heath (Price) and Teresa (Fletcher) will work with him to keep everything running.”

He’ll also oversee the district’s website, which is in the process of being re-developed.

Glover noted the district’s growing technology additions in recent years, including all students beginning at Heritage Elementary being equipped with a laptop or tablet as well as the technology advances needed in classrooms.

“It’s a lot of work and we need someone who can dedicate their time to that fully,” Glover said.

Price and Fletcher have OKRankings.com, which was responsible for gathering rankings from over 3,000 coaches statewide. In 2010, he was hired by the OSSAA to be the director of IT and media relations and OKRankings. com morphed into what is now OSSAARankings.com. His own position morphed into senior software engineer. “That involves taking an initial concept of an application or website, gathering the ‘customers’ involved in the using of that product and laying out the design, development, testing, implementation and support,” served various IT positions for Kingfisher the last several years. Price is listed as IT and computer tech and Fletcher as educational technology in the staff directory.

Wilfong is a 1984 Wagoner High School graduate. He played basketball at Rogers State College for two years and then later earned his bachelor’s in computer science from Northeastern State University in 1989.

He worked various jobs in IT and software, but in 2007 his career began to veer toward its most recent path.

He was the lead software engineer and developer for said Wilfong.

In his time at the OSSAA, Wilfong has developed OSSAA internal business applications, integrations with Office 365, OSSAA.com, OSSAARankings.com, OSSAASpeech. com, OSSAA officials internal application and OSSAA speech application.

Those websites and speech applications are used by more than 1,200 school administrators, more than 3,000 officials, over 4,000 coaches and viewed by hundreds of thousands of Oklahoma high school sports fans annually.

“I witnessed his expertise first-hand for several years and knew that’s something we needed at KPS,” Glover said.

“I have very much enjoyed the time I’ve been able to spend at the OSSAA, not only doing what I absolutely love - software development and high school sports - but also the people I’ve been able to get to know while working there,” Wilfong said.

“And that’s not just the 15 individuals in the OSSAA building, but also the relationships and friendships built with school administrators, officals and coaches around Oklahoma.”

Wilfong will begin fulltime work for the district in November.

“I’m very thankful for this new opportunity,” he said. “Just like with any new position, you get to bring your work experience, learn what is needed and work with others to bring solutions.

“I’m also looking forward to being a part of this great school system and working with the students and 200-plus staff. KPS has a lot of very exciting things on the horizon and I’m looking forward to working side-by-side with the existing technology team to do our part to keep technology at its highest level.”

Also approved was hiring Heather Mercer as the district’s payroll clerk and Suzanne Bomhoff as a central office administrative assistant.

Mercer has been the student registrar at the high school. Bomhoff worked a similar role in Okarche as the one she’s taking here, Glover said.

The two help fill the void left by Amy Woods, who resigned her central office position last week.

Those hires were made after a 50-minute executive session.

Prior to the session, the board approved hiring Carole Davis, River Harper and Lynzi Garramone as paraprofessionals at Heritage Elementary and Upper Elementary.

Also early in the meeting, members gave approval for fundraisers for the basketball programs and videography and also approved board of education meeting dates, times and location for 2023.

Present were board president Jim Perdue, vice president Charles Walker and members Terry Payne and Carly Franks.

Dana Golbek was out of town and unable to attend.