Board sticks with AD despite allegations

BERNE - The athletic director of South Adams High School has held onto his job despite the fact his superintendent recommended he be fired because of conduct that "offends the morals of the South Adams community."

Mike Pries, who has been on administrative leave since March, was surrounded by family and friends, including many members of his church, after the South Adams School Board rejected a recommendation for termination on a 3-2 vote.

Two board members -president Tony Mellencamp and Myron Schwartz, who is leaving the board later this month to take a teaching position with the district - were absent.

Supporting superintendent Cathy Egolf's recommendation were John Mann and Julie Mansfield.

Board members Arlene Amstutz, John Buckingham, and Steve Dobbler opposed the termination.

The status of Pries as athletic director had been the subject of an executive session of the board Friday afternoon, during which a number of people spoke in his behalf.

Action on Egolf's recommendation came in a special meeting shortly after 6 p.m. with about 100 people, most of them supporting Pries, in attendance.

Egolf's written recommendation was entered as part of the meeting's minutes.

In that recommendation, she said, "Pries engaged in inappropriate conduct of a sexual nature with a former student and drank alcohol with this student while she was still in high school."

Egolf said her investigation also found allegations of inappropriate contact with female students by Pries at his prior employment at Wabash High School.

An attorney for the board said there will be another executive session to complete "findings of fact and rulings of law" in the matter.

That will be followed by another public meeting. No dates were set for either.

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