Jeff Cox, a native of Alleghany, has been hired to take over from Superintendent Duane Davis as the leader of Alleghany County Schools in October.

Cox is new school superintendent

You can take the boy out of Alleghany, but you can’t take the Alleghany out of the boy. Such is the case of the county school’s newest superintendent, Jeff Cox. Cox, a native of the county, was selected out of 33 applicants and is scheduled to replace outgoing superintendent Duane Davis toward the end of October.

“The decision to come home was easy,” the son of Margaret Crouse and the late James Cox said in an interview Friday. “I’ve enjoyed all the places that I’ve been, particularly my current role in Lee County.

I’ve got a terrific staff and it’s a great school system. There are about 9,000 plus students in Lee County, we’ve got 13 schools and it’s a good situation. I told my superintendent I wasn’t really looking for a change, but when I heard that Mr. Davis was going to retire, my wife Reba and I talked about it.” After the discussion, they came to the conclusion “this is where family is, this is where home is,” Cox said. “We want somewhere we can plant roots and stay for a long time.”

Education

Cox left Alleghany upon high school graduation, attending Appalachian State University, where he received a bachelor’s in English-secondary education in 1992. Awaiting a job in the teaching profession, Cox worked at The Alleghany News for several months. He left his position there to be an English teacher at Dudley High School in Greensboro. A year later, Cox returned to Alleghany, where he taught English, math, yearbook and journalism at Alleghany High School. In 1996, Cox received a North Carolina Principal Fellows scholarship, “which allowed me to teach part-time and go back to school to get my principal certification and master’s degree in school administration, which I did again through Appalachian,” Cox said.

After receiving his master’s, Cox then pursued a doctoral degree from the University of North Carolina-Charlotte, which he received in 2001. 1>

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