Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, June 10, 1995                   TAG: 9506120008
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-1   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: ADRIANNE BEE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG                                LENGTH: Medium

THE FATHER PRINCIPAL

Good thing - most students don't have to face the principal after the last school bell rings. Keely Smith, however, spends an awful lot of time with her principal. She even has dinner with him every night; the principal is her father.

Alfred Smith, principal of Blacksburg High School, has recently shared his last school days with his daughter, a senior graduating today.

"It will be kind of lonesome now," said Smith, who added with a laugh, "It was nice to be able to go down the hall and say, 'Hey, make sure you feed the dog today.'"

Smith, whose son graduated two years ago, has had a family member at his workplace for the past six years.

Education is really a family affair for the Smiths. Keely Smith's mother, Linda, is a kindergarten teacher at Margaret Beeks Elementary School. And both parents also graduated from Blacksburg High School - a few years ago.

"There's really no pressure," said Keely Smith.

"My father and I are really close. He knows everything about me already and I don't see him much at school anyway."

How do Keely's friends and boyfriend feel about it? "All of my friends think of him more as a friend than an administrator" she said. "If people ever do complain about him, I just ask what they did and then they realize he's just doing his job."

"Her friends are in our house all of the time," said Alfred Smith. "They've seen me in my shorts and T-shirt mowing the lawn, they know I'm a real person."

Keely Smith struggles to think of problems her situation has proposed. "Well, there was one time when another student ran into my car," said Smith. "I think he was really nervous because he rear-ended the principal's daughter."

Then there was the rumor that she got into the National Honor Society only because her father is principal. Her standing as twelfth in her graduating class should silence that bit of gossip.

What's the best part of being the principal's daughter? "I get into ball games for free," Smith said. "And if I forget a book or something at school, my dad can always drive me up there and we can get it."

The situation may have only been awkward for Keely's teachers. "They probably feel more out of place," said Alfred Smith. "I always tried to take off my principal's jacket and go in and be a parent at conferences."

Keely Smith admits some teachers would often say, "Well, I'll just have to talk to your father," and perhaps expected more of her. For the most part, though, her relationships with teachers were "pretty normal."

When she's not at school, Keely Smith works at Companion Animal Clinic. She hopes to one day be a veterinarian. In the fall she will go to Virginia Tech to study animal science. Her father still won't be too far away. "I'm moving into our apartment downstairs," she said.

Today Keely Smith looks forward to graduation. She smiles and adds "it's going to be extra special getting a diploma from my father."