Chuck Gibson’s life story could be considered a prime example of being in the right place at the right time as well as knowing someone who knew someone.
Gibson, 65, went from an internship with the Macon Police Department to coaching basketball then ultimately to being named Jones County School Superintendent. It took some chance meetings, phone calls, and conversations between friends to help make all that happen.
Gibson, a Jones County resident for 40 years, is glad it did.
“My feelings of Gray and Jones County have been nothing but positives,” he commented recently. “It’s all about the relationships that we’ve been able to still have with people in the community. There’s really nothing better.”
Gibson’s dad lied about his age when he was 15 to get in the Army. He served in some capacity in World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War, in which he did two stints. Gibson was 11 when his father retired and the family moved to Macon. He went to high school at Central, then two years at Georgia Southwestern in Americus, where he played baseball. He graduated from Mercer University with a degree in sociology and minor in criminal justice.
“I was doing an internship with the Macon Police, and I was getting ready to be a blue coat. My goal was to get in the FBI, but to go through that route to do so.”
Then a call came from the owner of Green’s Propane, Fred Green, in Forsyth. “Monroe Academy needed a middle school basketball coach of all things,” Gibson recalled.
“My dad told me about it. I said ‘sure’. I drove up there, started working part-time, added on a Health and PE degree at Mercer, another year,” he went on. “Took a job at Monroe Academy, and that’s where I started my school career in 1984. Just a phone call.”
It was while the young coach was in Forsyth that he met Carla Hutchins, who was graduating from Tift College.
“A mutual friend introduced us, and we’ve been married 39 years,” he shared before adding, “When I look back at things reflectively, she probably had the toughest job of all, being a coach’s wife, being the wife of a principal, and the wife of the superintendent. That’s tough. And she went through it with flying colors.”
The Gibsons have two children, Chaz, 38, and Caleb, 37, and two grandchildren. Charlie is a sixth-grader and Maeleigh is a 10th-grader in Morgan County.
Meeting a ‘bad’ referee … and future good friend
Gibson coached three teams at Monroe Academy. “So, on Saturday mornings, I’d coach three games. When we were playing Tattnall Square one morning, one of the referees was John Trimnell (longtime principal at Jones County High).
“I didn’t know John Trimnell,” Gibson acknowledged. “All I knew him as was a referee that we lost three games that morning with. And, back then I was a bulldog on a chain. It was … you know how the coaches are.”
Did the ref make the coach happy? “Not at all.”
Gibson left at the end of the season and went to Cherokee High School in Canton to work under a former football coach at Central. He was a coach, PE, and special education teacher. (“I’m a PE teacher, teaching out of field.”) “Crazy story,” Gibson shared. “This is how God is involved in the details.”
The head coach he had followed to Cherokee left in the middle of the year. Gibson didn’t go with him.
“New coach comes in. I basically don’t have a job,” Gibson pointed out, “because I am out-of-field teaching.”
Gibson did have a slight Jones County connection at Cherokee. Bonnie Holton was his department chair.
“Her mother was Joyce Lawrence, who taught English at Jones County High.”
However, another chance meeting was what led to a move by Gibson. He worked at Cherokee High with a vocational director, John Johnson. Johnson had previously worked in Cedartown along with Trimnell, who had moved on to Jones County. Gibson coached Johnson’s son, Jody, at Cherokee.
Johnson left mid-year to take over as President of Georgia Southwestern College in Americus. Jody played baseball at the high school there, and Johnson and Trimnell met again when Jones County played Americus in baseball.
“They sit together on the bleachers and reminisce,” Gibson said. “And Trimnell asked Johnson, ‘Hey, you know anybody looking for a job? Any coaches?’ Johnson replied, ‘Yeah, there’s a guy up there in Cherokee, Chuck Gibson.
“So,” Gibson went on, “one Saturday morning I get a call. John Trimnell on the phone. Looking for a head track coach, assistant football or JV football, something of that nature. Asked me if I was interested. I said, ‘no sir, but call back if you ever have a head coaching position.”
‘Ref’ gives ‘coach’ a new job … and career move
That didn’t take long.
“Two weeks later he calls me back. ‘Hey, we got a head girls basketball position. Will you come interview?’” Gibson took him up on the offer.
“I walk in the Jones County High School office in May of 1986, and we meet. Mr. Trimnall says, ‘Hey, do you remember me?’ I said, ‘Yeah, you’re that sorry referee I had over there in Monroe that time.’ He said, ‘Yeah, I’m also the principal of this high school.’ We laughed about it. Never left. Crazy.
“And that’s how that happened. I mean, God is all in that, the works. It can’t be any other way.”
The new hire coached the Lady Greyhounds for three years, then the boys team for 14 years, teaching as well, primarily health and sociology, but anything requested. “I would do whatever was needed or asked.”
Meanwhile, Gibson went back to school to obtain his administrative education leadership degree and began phasing into that area.
“I’d do one period a day one year, and then the next year I may have half a day teaching and three periods of administrative duties. Did that for a couple of years, and then, finally, went into full-time administration, an assistant principal’s role.”
Gibson gave up his coaching duties and worked in that position for several years before his next career move.
“I can vividly remember the date and time,” he stated. “Probably December 12th at four o’clock in 2006. John Trimnell had a faculty meeting and told the faculty that he was retiring. I think, fast-forwarding that, him retiring mid-year sort of set the table. Somebody had to take the phone calls in 2007, so I was named interim principal in January of 2007.” Following the interview process, the Board of Education named him principal of the high school.
One more career move; life after retirement
Gibson held that position until 2016, when the School Superintendent job came open. Gibson applied and was chosen by the Board of Education from a field of several candidates. He noted his initial hiring date at the school, May of 1986.
“30 years later, to the month, 30 years from that point, I’m appointed school superintendent of Jones County Schools in May.”
The veteran educator retired in 2021 near the end of COVID. That experience pretty much further explained his outlook on the school system.
“I am proud to say that we didn’t close our schools down. We felt that we adhered to all the guidelines that were out there that nobody knew anything about, but everybody had an opinion on, so to speak. But we stayed true to that.
“And,” he continued, “We went through COVID because we felt like that if we’re not in school, we would have lost our community. We really felt that. The uniqueness of Jones County, how people live here, but they work elsewhere. We just felt like that we couldn’t (close), and we did everything in our power, within the confines of student safety and teacher safety, to have school the best we could, and we were proud of that.”
Gibson said he took some time off following his retirement in 2021, but that didn’t last long. He started working just a couple of hours a week as a bailiff in Magistrate Court Wednesday mornings. He then helped the Sheriff’s Department with a three-year policy review. That led to a part-time position with the department entering various reports and working with the Jones County Sheriff Foundation. He has been working about 15 hours a week there for about four years, he estimated.
Gibson explained his rationale for taking that position.
“I guess the major reason would be everybody wants to be on a good team, and I do; we all do. The opportunity came along in whatever role or capacity to be on the Jones County Sheriff’s team. I have a long-standing relationship with the sheriff through my role in the schools and his role here, so it just made sense.”
Gibson said he and Carla are enjoying retired life. They have traveled some, he plays golf once a week, and he and his brother, Craig, try to fish when they can. He and Carla go to Morgan County softball games to watch Maeleigh play.
“She’s a starting first baseman,” the grandfather said. “Got a couple of homers this year. She’s a 10th-grader, so the sky’s the limit.”
To illustrate his feelings about Jones County, Gibson wanted to share a story he will never forget. Carla Gibson had a cyst on the base of her brain between Thanksgiving and Christmas in the early 1990s. Surgery involving drilling a hole in the brain to ease the pressure was required.
“We didn’t have time for Christmas that year.
I’m coaching basketball.
My wife’s having surgery. I’m trying to juggle our two kids that are two and three years old.
And Saturday morning, a knock on the door.
Sheriff Reece with Santa Claus and a bag full of toys. Billy Mitchell as Santa Claus.
“Someone asked me, ‘Why do you work?’
Relationships. I mean, that’s Jones County. To me personally, Jones County has nothing but good things.”
