A reception was held on Tuesday at the Demopolis City Schools office to honor incoming superintendent Dr. Al Griffin.

The reception also honored Dr. Neil Hyche, who served as the interim superintendent since July 2009, filling in for Dr. Wayne Vickers, who had become the superintendent of Saraland City Schools.

Hyche was given a new Dell computer, donated by RockTenn, as a token of appreciation for his service to Demopolis City Schools.

Tuesday marked a bittersweet day for Demopolis, regardless of how you look at it.

On a happy note, we welcome Dr. Al Griffin as our new superintendent. I’m excited to see what happens once he’s able to dig in his heels with the board of education.

I suspect that won’t take very long.

Dr. Griffin’s enthusiasm for the job and for providing a quality education to our children will take him miles in Demopolis.

The growth and quality of our school system will be along for a tremendous ride in the months and years to come.

However, we also bid farewell to Dr. Hyche, who has more than capably served this community for nearly a year.

I’m not sure many of the parents in the Demopolis City School System realized the good hands their children’s education have been in.

It’s not often you have the opportunity to work with an interim superintendent the caliber of what we’ve had in Dr. Hyche.

He’s someone this community will miss. I know I will miss his friendship, personally.

Hopefully, he will use his new computer to catch up on occasion via email.

On behalf of this newspaper and the city of Demopolis, I thank Dr. Neil Hyche for the professionalism, stability and knowledge he’s brought to our school system.

I look forward to seeing what is in store for our educational system, and know that Dr. Griffin is the right person to find that next level and take our children there.

Jason Cannon is the editor and publisher of The Demopolis Times.