PVT FILE PHOTO Rob Roberts, Nye County School District superintendent. Advertisement

Nye County School Superintendent Rob Roberts was named Nevada superintendent of the year by the other superintendents of the state, at a June 18 meeting.

Roberts has been superintendent in Nye County since July 1, 2002. He was formerly a principal at Reno High School and a principal at Incline Village before that.

Roberts had a 22-year career in the military before becoming an educator, serving in the 101st Airborne Division during the Vietnam War and reaching the rank of lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army. He was an instructor at the West Point Military Academy and chief of the military science instructional branch.

"I am honored and humbled to have been selected by my peers, the other 16 superintendents in the State of Nevada for this honor and will continue to do everything I can to increase student achievement in the Nye County school district," Roberts said.

He echoed the school district motto he coined: "Every child a success."

The award means Roberts will be introduced while he walks across the stage at the national convention of school superintendents in Florida, along with 50 other state superintendents of the year.

Roberts will be a candidate for national superintendent of the year, which has never been won by a Nevadan.

He will begin his term as superintendent of the year in 2008. The 2007 superintendent of the year is Bob Dolezal, from White Pine County.

When asked to explain the granting of the award, Carson City School Superintendent Mary Pierczynski, president of the Nevada Association of School Superintendents, cited his experience dealing with growth issues in Pahrump and involvement in state politics.

Roberts served on the transition education team for newly-elected Gov. Jim Gibbons and was appointed to his methamphetamine task force.

"That's always a challenge determining how you're going to handle the growth in your community. He's also been pretty active on the state level," Pierczynski said.

Roberts boasted the Nye County school district has also been a finalist for the Nevada Taxpayers Award for good government three times in the last five years.