“I want this campus to be successful across the board in all areas. That includes academics, that includes fine arts, and that includes athletics.”

The goal of our new principal, Lane Buban, is crystal clear and he has plenty of ideas on how to achieve it.

“Having good teachers and getting input from students [will help us be successful],” Buban said. “I feel like students need to have a voice and a say in how decisions are made on campus to some degree.”

Having a new principal creates a little change and instability, but that’s nothing compared to having four different principals in five years.

“I don’t think there has been a lot of stability and consistency in the last four years,” Buban said. “It’s not a good feeling to have, but I’m not going anywhere; I hope to be here for several years.”

This lack of stability has affected students and teachers, mainly by raising questions like what Buban will expect from all on campus.

“[Students] need to have consistency, they need to feel comfortable in the fact that they have someone that’s going to be here to take care of them and help take care of the school,” Buban said. “And to some degree, I think that happens to teachers too.”

Adjusting to a new principal can be hard, however associate principal JP Luna said that with Buban it will be easier since he was previously the principal at Sam Rayburn and has worked with some of the teachers and administrators at Bryan High.

“A lot of times when you work with somebody new there’s that time where you have to establish the trust,” Luna said. “The trust is there, I have no doubt in my mind that he supports me. Whatever he says, I’m behind him a hundred and ten percent.”

Buban has already started a few programs and policies to make school a better place for everyone.

“There’s one big thing that is kinda of in the works for this year, and it’s called Living a Better Story,” Buban said. “We are going to look at doing that in the spring, it’s going to be affiliated with a group in the core cadets. It’s about getting students to put service above self, meaning that getting students to understand that giving back to this school and our community is important.”

Although Buban is coming in with new ideas on how to make our school better, he is continuing many of the positive changes put into effect last year such as the Pride program.

“I’m a real big believer in positive incentives,” Buban said. “Those type of things are important because I think that the kids who come to school and do the things they need to be successful, and they try and they work hard, they don’t get enough recognition [for it].”

Buban hopes that these positive incentives help students figure out what they want to do after high school, but understands it’s okay to have a change of heart after about what they want to pursue.

“I worked at Hermann Hospital with heart patients, “ Buban said. “And I did their rehab after angioplasty or bypass surgery or a heart attack,”

After working in Hermann Hospital Buban went back to school to get a masters degree in exercise physiology. However, teaching an undergraduate class exposed Buban to teaching and he found that it was perfect for him.

“Part of the time I was working with a professor and I ran his lab, so I taught undergraduates physiology lab classes, and I really enjoyed teaching,” Buban said. “I just kind of fell in love with it. Through all that I didn’t want to teach at the college level so I ended up looking at public schools, and that’s how I got into teaching science at public school.”

While going through life, Buban has had obstacles that he has overcome, but he never gave up.

“I had a little dealing with cancer about a year ago, and I had some surgery. The tumor was removed, and then I had chemotherapy and radiation,” Buban said. “You just never know, just never give up; whatever circumstance you’re in, never give up.”

Buban has lots of life experience and wants to try to make students life better by offering them advice.

“One of my favorite quotes is from William Churchill, it was during World War II, ‘Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts,’” Buban said. “To me that’s huge, because we’re human, we all make mistakes, I understand that.”