Debbie Hyler

Debbie Haller, thanks for spending a little bit of time with me today.

Well, thanks for having me. I'm glad to be here, Chip.

Yeah, I'm excited. Yeah, talked a couple weeks ago with Mandy Taylor, so we got to hear a lot of things, school foundation. So I'm looking to chatting a little bit with you about that, but just kind of to get started, kind of the first question that I like to ask is, who is Debbie Haller?

Well, um, Number one, I would not consider myself cool, so I'm glad you thought of me in that way. But, you know, I'm a native Florentine. I've been married to my husband Danny for about 40 years. We dated over 6 years before that. We— Danny is also a native Florentine and a physician here in Florence. And we have 3 grown children and 3 grandchildren.

Wow. Well, that is, you grandchildren. My mom says that grandchildren are the reward for not killing your kids. Absolutely. So I'm still in the kids part, but I'm looking forward to that. And you've always been really active in the Florence community. Now, of course, now you are— is it executive director? Executive director of the school foundation. And I want to talk a little bit about that, but that's not That wasn't your first stop in Florence. So before we talk about School Foundation and things like that, what, um, what was first? How did you end up there?

Well, it's really a long, long and winding path, but, um, I graduated from West Florence and then went to Francis Marion where I majored in biology and minored in chemistry. And then after I finished up at Francis Marion, I went to McLeod to the School of Medical Technology. And that is probably a career that a lot of people don't know about. It was a fascinating career. You are the people in the laboratory. You run all the lab tests when you have your blood drawn, and, you know, I don't think people really understand or think about what happens to that tube of blood. Well, it goes down to the lab, and medical technologists, or MLTs, which is a medical laboratory technician, which is a 2-year degree, they process all those tests. And so I did that and was actually the supervisor of the microbiology lab at McLeod for 10 years in my first career. How about that? So it was, I loved it. It was a great job and I learned so many skills that I've used the rest of my life.

Sure. Well, and then I imagine to some extent spent some time being mom. Time, you know, uh, you were kind enough to share with me kind of a, a history, if you will, and then spent some time raising the kids and, and being mom. And, and I have to imagine that's probably one of the more gratifying, but it's certainly not easy.

Sure, sure. And you know, when you have a physician who is on call and who works till 10, 11 every night, you have to become fairly independent as a wife and as a mother. And so by the time we had our third child, that's when we realized that somebody needed to be home with the children. So that's when I left the hospital. Of course, I was used to being super busy. I've always been a hard worker, and, um, I wasn't the type to just go sit by the pool all day, which I don't think, you know, too many moms do that anyway. But you know what I'm saying? So I very quickly became active in the schools that our children were in. At the time, they started off at All Saints. So I was basically every position started, you know, as a room mother, worked my way up and became, you know, part of the board. And it was interesting as our kids were getting older in the All Saints years, start looking, what are you going to do for middle school? Well, Father Bob was the headmaster at All Saints back then, and he decided it was time to look at creating an upper school. So, I was actually one of the 3 people that worked with Father Bob to create Trinity. How about that? We wrote the 501 together, we picked out the land. So, I think a lot of people probably don't remember that about me. So, I guess it just shows that my roots in believing in education—

Absolutely.

—and education moving people upward and giving them a chance to, you know, excel in their lives has always been very important for me. So, it wasn't always just with the public schools. Sure. And then it was interesting, both of my older two, after one year at Trinity, it wasn't the fit for them. And so they were ready to move on and moved to Sneed for 8th grade. And then I started volunteering a whole nother round at Sneed. Our youngest at that time had moved to Royal and then, you know, did things at West Florence. So spent a lot of years volunteering in schools.

Yeah, well, and it's, and again, we'll come back to the schools part, but another thing people may have forgotten is you also, you weren't a hockey mom. You were a hockey COO. You were deep into the PD Pride there for a while. Wow.

And that was an interesting couple of years. I'll never forget Fred DeBard, who was one of the co-owners. Danny and I were one of the team owners. And, you know, I think anybody who was in Florence at the time understands that the team started off, you know, really strong, sold out every night. And at that time, there was an owner from Tennessee.. But then some local couples went in together and bought the team. And, you know, it really got to be a struggle to fill the seats. But one day Fred DeBard said, Debbie, why don't you just start, you know, going in on Monday mornings and just checking on things? Well, the next thing I know, I'm there all the time. I'm working 36 home games. At that time, I would wear a pedometer and I was walking just like 14 miles round and around the Civic Center at the time, talking to the fans, you know, trying to fix issues that came up. But it was really interesting. It was fun, you know, being a Florentine, I really didn't know much about hockey. I loved it, you know, when we first got our season tickets and loved watching it. But it was really interesting.

Yeah, I miss, I miss the PD Pride. It was a— and I probably am guilty of like, what seems like a lot of things around here, it's super busy and hot from the start, like a restaurant. You want to give it a month before, because everybody were so excited about having new things. But I really just— the energy of the place, I remember being really cool. It was just a good environment. I think it's also interesting, and I couldn't keep tally now, but there were a lot of folks who came to Florence as a result of the Pride who, whether they're still here I mean, because it's been a while now, but I mean, whether they're still here or they've since moved on, they hung around for a while even after a lot of them quit playing hockey.

So there are several that I know of. I'll run into the grocery store from time to time. You know, Perry Florio, one of the coaches, he and his wife Amy. Amy's a teacher at Del May. You know, the Krells were very involved. You know, and the youth hockey league was another really positive thing that came out of that. I mean, if you remember, people were getting up at like 4 o'clock in the morning. It was so popular to to get the ice time. Absolutely. But unfortunately, the bottom line to me was that market was too small. The Florence market, we couldn't compete with the larger cities that, you know, if we sold a billboard on the ice, we'd struggle to get $4,000 or $5,000 for it. We're in Tampa or somewhere like that, it might sell for $25,000. Sure. And then 36 home games, you know, as a family with your kids, 36 home games is a lot of nights to commit to go and commit to buying the food, you know, while you're there. Because at some point they're going to say, well, you know, I'd rather go to the West Florence game, or I'd rather go, you know, to dinner with some friends or have friends over to my house instead of just go, go, go. Because some weekends you would have a Friday night game, a Saturday night game, and a Sunday afternoon game, right? That's a lot.

It is. And well, and again, it's a lot for anything. I mean, because all my guys at one point or another played ball at Maple Park, and as much as you love baseball, even as— even the kids, you know, you just kind of get— you get run down and tired. And so it can be— it certainly can be a lot. And again, I think part of what we deal with now is, uh, yeah, and again again. We're, we're talking about now, but looking back years ago, I mean, our attention spans are just shorter. And so it's one of the reasons, frankly, that I struggle with professional baseball, is that the games are really long and the seasons are really long, and I never know when they're going to end, right? Um, and so I do think that there's, there's some of that. But all of that kind of experience, uh, led you to kind of what you're doing now with the school foundation. I mean, I— you, you've got a very varied background, but you've been involved with the school foundation now for— since 2006. So 16, 16 years from the beginning. You, you were, um, instrumental kind of really, really early on. Talk a little bit about how and why it started.

Well, I was not one of the founding board members. I, I was actually hired, I guess, about '03, well, the foundation was started in 2000. Okay. And at that time, there were some business leaders, community leaders here that just weren't satisfied with the current state of public education. Don Harriot was one of the founding members, and of course at that time he was at Roche, and you know, they were bringing all these employees down from New Jersey and comparing the schools here to what they had in New Jersey. So, Don had, you know, a lot at stake, and he was willing to chair those efforts. Trip DeBoard, of course, was instrumental. Fred DeBoard, Tricia Calder, Jean Leatherman. I mean, there was— and some of those people, you know, Jean and Tricia are still on my board. They're just super, super passionate about education overall, as I am. But they wanted to get to $1 million before they started giving out grants and did that in just a few years. And we're to the point now we have given out $1.97 million plus, so we are just a hair short of the $2 million mark. So I think that's pretty neat for a town the size of Florence, and it really speaks to how much the community has supported the efforts, and it's been a great thing.

Yeah, it really has been, and I think that one of the things that I've enjoyed, you know, because I spent time on the board, uh, earlier on, is I, I think a big part of what it's done is raise awareness for all of the different things that are going on in the school. I really think that it's been an ally to the district as a whole just being, again, a non-employee advocate for just spreading the good news of some of the things that have been going on. What do you consider to be kind of the, or I guess what is the kind of overarching kind of mission of the foundation, if you had to explain that?

Well, our main mission is to raise funds, first of all, but then to provide grants for all these wonderful creative teachers. They come up with so many great ideas, and the budget, the normal operating budget of the school district, just can't cover those all. So I like to think that most of the time what we do is fund projects that are startups, and then if things go well with them, then the district will roll those into their operating budget in subsequent years. And a lot of the things that we've done, you know, grants that we funded several years ago, are still being used. You know, an example of that would be one year we gave $75,000 and the district matched that to come up with this really cool STEM lab at Carver Elementary. Well, that lab is still there. All that equipment is still there. A few years ago, we gave $50,000 towards the STEM bus. Well, that STEM bus goes to every school in the district on a rotating basis, and that bus, you know, will be used for many years. I know you and Mindy talked a little bit about Bloomberg, but that's in all 3 high schools now, and that is a fabulous financial curriculum that is ongoing. You know, we've done some other things that, like the Leader in Me. It's a program that's been going on at Briggs for several years now, but it sort of sets the culture for that school. You know, Briggs is also known as Farm to School, but the Leader in Me, where every child in that school is given some type of leadership role, they know— you know, what their job is, basically. They lead the parent-student-teacher conferences. So, it gives those kids just, I think, just a wonderful sense of being and knowing that they can all be a leader. Yeah. And so, we funded that for a couple of years. So, you know, it's been a lot of different things. For a long time, we funded a lot of technology. Since Dr. O'Malley has been here, he has found ways for the district to buy that technology. You know, it used to be that teachers were begging for a laptop cart, or iPads, or, you know, iMacs, things like that. I don't think we ever funded SMART Boards themselves, but, you know, lots of technology things. But now the district is in good shape with that, so we're seeing other types of grants, you know, that are being offered up to us, and you know, I'm always impressed with the teachers that come up with these ideas. I mean, they, they really are creative.

Well, you know that I have a lot of respect for teachers. You know, it was, um, it was the hardest thing work-wise. It's as hard a thing as I've ever done, and it was one of those things that shaped me not only as a business person but as a parent. Uh, you know, it really opens your eyes. I think that, um, a lot of people would look at the profession differently if they spent time in a classroom.

It's a tough job, I'll say that for sure. And, you know, one of the other programs that the School Foundation has focused on the last few years has been the Fellows in Education. And I love the Fellows program, and that is basically where we bring about 30 community leaders in each school year., and we meet from August until May once a month. It's during lunchtime from 11 to 1, so we bring the group in, we feed them lunch, we meet at a different school each month, and this program is sponsored jointly by the School Foundation, the Greater Florence Chamber of Commerce, and Florence One Schools. And so Mike Miller's there, you know, each month, and myself, and Dr. O'Malley, and We go into the school, you know, talk to the principal a couple weeks ahead of time, come up with an agenda. The principals know what they want to highlight when they've got guests in their schools. They know what their strengths are, their weaknesses. And so we go in, eat lunch, the principal gives an overview presentation of the school, and then the 30 Leaders are broken into small groups and we tour the schools. So, we get to see, in some cases, the mobile units that are almost all gone from the district now, luckily. Right. But, you know, we see what's happening in the auditoriums. You go to Southside or South Florence and you look at the dance studios that are now in there, you look at the recording studios, the TV production studio. That's in South Florence. You see what's going on in the cafeterias, you see what's going on in the gyms, and so it's a way to hopefully build advocates for the school district. Sure. And for people to truly see what's going on. Now, you know, I'm 62. What a classroom looks like now is completely different than, you know, when I was in school, we sat in straight rows, you know, you were alphabetical order, and the teacher was at the front of the class, and you took notes. And, you know, today it's much more collaboration going on in the classroom. Students are working in groups, they're working, you know, on their own doing different things, and the teacher is more of a facilitator. So I think especially for older people, it's good for them to get in a classroom and see why money needs to be spent on some of this technology. So, it's just a great program, I think.

Yeah, I have been aware of it. I'm going to participate in it, and I'm really looking forward to that. I think I joked with you in my email, hopefully I won't get PTSD from my time at Moore. But it's, I'm excited about getting back in and seeing kind of some of those changes. Again, because I do think it's important for all of us. Any business leader that I talk to, workforce development is something that, and again, going back to time I spent with Don Herriot, workforce development, that's probably where I first heard about and really kind of bought into the concept. Right. Because, but, but to, I think that there's a lot of focus on that with Florence-Darlington Tech, with Francis Marion, the importance of that, but we all know, and studies show, that it starts way earlier than that, and making sure that we're doing all of these things, you know, in our K through 12, or even pre-K, you know, it makes a big, big difference. Debbie, since you've started with the school foundation, I'm curious, 'cause you've had, you know, sleeves rolled up, you know, for the last 16 years, what's changed the most?

Oh gosh, I might need to think about that one for a second. What has changed the most? I don't know. I can't really— I mean, I feel like, I don't know, you know, with our organization, I'm still the only full-time employee. I have Beverly McKee that works part-time with me, and luckily she and I I have been together for so many years that, you know, we work great together.

BAKER] Great synergy, for sure.

You know, I've had a lot of board members that have been around for many, many years as well. I think, you know, we've added more things over time. I guess that's one change. You know, we've delved into the school readiness and, you know, giving books out to young families and, you know, trying to encourage parents to read to their children. Of course, we've added Dancing for Our Future Stars, which that's been 10 years now, but we did start with just the one signature gala once a year. And so, you know, delving into a second fundraiser was originally a pretty big deal for an organization with the staff of 1.5 people, basically. For sure. But so that's been a lot different. It's been a lot of fun though. It's been a great event. But, you know, I feel like, you know, our schedule is pretty— it's very cyclical, you know, as to what happens. I know in my head, okay, in July I need to start recruiting people for Fellows. You know, the gala is going to be in the fall, the dancing event is going to be in the spring. So you have to start recruiting dancers in December. Because they have to start practicing in January. So I kind of feel like there's a rhythm to what we do, and I like that because, um, it's— there's always something different and changing. But it's— I guess overall though, we're still doing the process.

The process is similar, it sounds like, but the, the players, the people sometimes change, particularly again, I look at all the different dancers that I've seen, I just want to go on record, I think probably the slate of dancers, in my opinion, from the last Dancing with the Stars, top to bottom, Dancing with the Future Stars, top to bottom was probably as good, if not the best, top of all of them, top to bottom that I've seen. But on the record, I have yet to see a costume that beats Jay Labyrinth's Yeah, uh, years ago.

Absolutely.

The gasp in the audience, it was fantastic. I still talk to Jay about that, and it's, uh, it's a good laugh. I think that he wore those out afterwards. They may have come out—

well, you remember the next year Ed Love briefly, for about 1 minute, they didn't fit the same.

No, no, but it's one of those things that, again, I think it's neat having done an event like that for 10 years, that you have some memories of past, you know, Adam Crossin. I still remember, you know, some pretty memorable events from that. What has changed most, if you can think of anything, with the district?

Well, I think having Dr. O'Malley's leadership, you know, that's a lot has changed with that. I've seen so many positive changes. It's, it's you know, as a district graduate myself, and I've, you know, I went to Briggs. One of the mobile units that was just hauled off from Briggs this summer, when I was in the 3rd grade, and as I said, I'm 62 years old, that was a long time ago, but it was a new mobile unit when I was at Briggs. It was still there all that many years later. So, I just think, you know, all the changes to the buildings and the maintenance has been a wonderful thing to see. And, you know, I think everybody's being pushed to do their best, all employees. It's— they have tough jobs.

Yeah, they do. But I agree with you. I don't know Dr. O'Malley, but I've been impressed, not only because he's a Clemson Tiger. Obviously, I'm biased. And we, we both spent a lot of time, I'm sure, in Tillman Hall. But, uh, you know, I, I don't know him well, but everything that I have seen as a, again, as a business person, as a person who spent time, uh, and is very passionate personally about education, and as a parent, um, has been— I've been really impressed with it. I've been really impressed, frankly, with the district in general. I mean, I, I think that at least from my standpoint, a good part of that is due to his leadership, but it also takes a commitment from a lot of people to look at, you know, the first— I don't know that it was the first ever because I didn't go to West, but, you know, first home game. Yeah, on-site home games for athletics or for football in particular. And, you know, some of those, just the excitement that I see it again as a parent of young people that age, the excitement in the young people and the school spirit and some of those things.

Oh, the school pride. It's really amazing. And we all know from the business perspective that when somebody is coming to Florence to look at relocating here, one of the first things they're going to do is look at the schools. And, you know, we've got to keep up with other communities if we want to continue to recruit people here.

Yeah, well, it again, as for any parent in particular, you're right, it is one of the— in fact, I had somebody last week looking for a house, and you can tell that the school district conversation is so prevalent because this person didn't have kids, but they had been asked so many times that the first thing they said is, you know, if you were going to move to Florence, where are the areas that you would Schools aren't an issue for me. And so, you know, that it— but it's very much a top-of-mind thing. And I think even, you know, going back to a conversation I had with Ed Hoffman of Trinity about people moving to town and developing that as an option for, you know, for people who were looking for a particular kind of offering. Sure. To be able to use the schools, all of them, public and private, as a real draw to the area.

And that is important because every child, I mean, you know, even a family with 2 or 3 children, every child is going to be different. And, you know, public might be good for one and private might be good for one. I mean, we've got Montessori Schools of Florence as well as, you know, the other private schools and the, you know, the church private schools. And, you know, there's a lot of choice, and I think choice is a good thing because every child is unique.

Yeah, they are. And with 4 at my house, they all are completely different, interested in different things. We made our school choices over the years because we've kind of gone back and forth, um, based on, like you say, the personality, the interests, and the needs of the, the child. And it is really— it's a blessing to have choices around here for sure, and it's a blessing to have, frankly, strong choices, right? You know, it's not like you're choosing between bad options. It's great to have a lot of good choices. Um, well, Debbie, kind of as we wrap up, one of the questions that I like to ask, because I, I do like to keep things a little bit personal, is, um, if you were to take a look— and it could be literary, it could be a superhero, uh, any kind of fictional character that you feel like best represents you, who do you think it would be and why?

Well, you're going to laugh at this one. And I've thought about this one an awful lot. I chose Kermit the Frog.

Really? Okay.

Let's hear it. Kermit the Frog is a leader who is easygoing, but efficient, very well organized, gets frustrated by the lack of organization. You know, I love a spreadsheet. Sure. I love organizing like 800 people and where they're going to sit at Dancing for Our Future Stars. And that is a—

there aren't a lot of people who would love that.

Yes. Yes. Kermit also brings people together as a team. And if you look at what I do in my job, you know, bringing together the right group of 30 fellows, bringing together the right group of dancers, Bringing the right group of volunteers to both the gala committee and, or even the school foundation board, you know, putting the right people together, I think, is really important in making things turn out successfully.

I'm a big fan. I am. I had to explain to one of my younger coworkers not too long ago what Sesame Street was. So we were doing the people in your neighborhood, or at least I was. And, you know, Kermit is one of my favorite characters.

So, well, originally I just kept thinking, well, you know, what do I really do like when I'm not at work? And sort of nerdy stuff. I'm an avid reader. I'm always reading, always listening to a book. So I've got one going on both ways. And then we work jigsaw puzzles. So I'm trying to think, well, what characters do any of that? And, you know, it just wasn't coming together, so had to get creative.

I like it. I like—

well, what's, uh, what's your favorite book? Oh my gosh, I don't know that I have one. Um, I'm always reading new authors. I read a lot of fiction. I don't— I'm not a non-fiction reader. Um, but I love Southern authors. Um, I love— C. Hope Clark is a South Carolina author that a lot of people may not have read, but she writes books set on Edisto Island that I love. The Country Club Murder series is another one. It's hilarious, but someone is also murdered, at least one murder in every book. But it's so typical country club, the characters, and they're set in the 1970s. And the main character has like a love affair with her Mr. Coffee. You know, she just She just idolizes her coffee pot. But anyway, so it's just, they're different books. But then I'll read a crazy psychological thriller, and then I'll read something else that's, you know, a beach read set in one of the islands. So bounce kind of around. A little bit of everything. Yeah.

I like it. Well, Debbie, thanks for spending time with me today.

Well, thanks for having me. I enjoyed it. I did too.