Hickory High School principal, 57, dies after battle with cancer

Woodley J. Koonce III, a veteran principal who led five of Chesapeake's schools during his career including, most recently, Hickory High School, lost his battle with lymphoma Saturday evening. He was 57.

He is survived by his wife, Vickie, and daughters, Kristy Koonce Hedrick and Tracy Koonce McClung. His son, Woodley Matthew "Matt" Koonce, died in a car crash in 2001 at the age of 18.

Friends and colleagues remembered Koonce on Sunday as a caring principal who took the ballooning populations of his last two schools in stride and was always ready to crack a joke.

"He could have been a comedian, I think," said Curtis Lane, principal at Deep Creek Central Elementary and Koonce's friend since the 1970s. "He believed humor was the best way to motivate people."

A native of Chesapeake and a Great Bridge High School graduate, Koonce returned after college to become a physical education teacher at what was then Great Bridge Junior High. During his time there, he had a hand in coaching what seemed to be nearly every sport, said Lane, who was also a teacher there at the time.

"He coached football, volleyball, girls basketball, gymnastics, track, wrestling - he did a little bit of everything. Kids just really liked him and wanted to follow him," Lane said. And then, "what the kids saw in him, I think the adults also saw in him."

Koonce took his first administrative job as an assistant principal at Chittum Elementary, Lane said. From there, he would go on to head Southeastern Elementary, Crestwood Intermediate, Crestwood Middle School, Hickory Middle School and Hickory High School.

Wherever he went, humor was key to his leadership style, friends said.

Koonce, who had a doctorate in education, did his dissertation on the connection between humor and successful school leadership. What he classified as humor "producers" - those who actively created original humor and saw humor in many situations - were the most successful principals, he found, and he took his own research to heart.

When he was principal at Southeastern, he would go into classrooms and sit on the floor, pretending to be one of the students. During his time at Crestwood Intermediate, he created a special "humor room" that he filled with funny tapes and videos, so teachers would have a place to relax and laugh.

Former student Alex Macdonald, who had Koonce as her principal both at Southeastern Elementary and at Hickory High School, remembered Koonce carrying her off the bus when she was in first grade, after she had fallen asleep on a field trip.

"There are probably a lot of people who thought of him like a father figure," she said.

When Koonce was head of Hickory Middle, the school's population swelled to nearly 1,900 - 25 percent more than the building was meant to hold - making it the second-largest middle school in Virginia.

Koonce responded by putting his assistant principals' offices in each grade level's hallway, to make sure they stayed connected with the students, said Susan Mercer, a sixth-grade special education teacher at Hickory Middle.

"When there's a school that big, it's hard for principals to get down to the students' level, and he got to know everybody," she said.

Koonce took over Hickory High School in 2007. He received the cancer diagnosis late last year and was absent for much of this year as he underwent treatment at Duke University Medical Center.

He handled the diagnosis "like he tackled everything," Lane said. "He was very motivated to beat it."

Koonce could always motivate in the darkest situation, Mercer said.

"He was very positive," she said. "If things were bad, he would always say, 'It's gonna get better.' "

Pilot writer Lauren King contributed to this report.

Alicia Wittmeyer, (757) 222-5216, alicia.wittmeyer@pilotonline.com