Sean C. Morgan
Mark Looney was no stranger to Sweet Home when he accepted his new position as assistant principal at Sweet Home High School.
Having grown up in Scio, the 44-year-old began volunteering at the local fire department as a teen. After graduation, he began pursuing a career in the fire service and was a resident medic-firefighter in Albany. There, he worked with another resident, Ken Weld, who’s now a battalion chief for the Sweet Home Fire and Ambulance District. He also worked with Sweet Home resident Ron Lake, now-retired SHFAD Fire Chief Mike Beaver and now-retired SHFAD Battalion Chief Doug Emmert.
Looney’s also been visiting the area for years for pleasure and work. His father, Richard Looney, owned a logging road construction company, and Looney worked in the Quartzville area, among others, building logging roads for his father.
Now assistant principal, Looney will be responsible for student discipline, teacher observation and teacher evaluations, assisting Principal Keith Winslow in his duties. For the past three years, Tim Porter worked half-time as assistant director while handling curriculum director duties.
Looney earned a bachelor’s degree in math from Western Baptist College (now Corban University) in 1994. He earned a second bachelor’s degree there in math education in 1996. In 2006, he earned his master’s degree in education administration at George Fox University.
Looney didn’t reach education directly. He was taking classes for the fire service, but he saw something in the fire service that, he said, he couldn’t mentally deal with. He loaded up and moved to a farm.
“I found myself in Christ, where I fit into the Christian family,” he said, and that was a deciding factor in enrolling at Western Baptist.
“I was a strong believer, and my family was, (that) you had to have a four-year degree,” Looney said. It didn’t matter what the degree was. He picked math because it seemed the quickest way to a degree. After graduating, he worked at Accu-Fab Systems in Salem as a machinist, something he uses as an example in the classroom of how math applies to real life.
“What actually got me interested in education was coaching,” Looney said. He coached basketball, softball and football, and he was drawn to teaching children. He returned to school to earn a degree in education. Soon after, he had a family and had to quit coaching.
“I like teaching,” Looney said. “I love education.”
Now he gets to help educate the teachers who teach the students, he said. “And I still get to educate kids when they misbehave.”
Everyone pushes boundaries at one point or another, he said.
“It’s still a learning process and education. I try to get to know all my students in the classroom, out of the class, on the field.”
He entered the profession in 1999 when he went to work for Scio School District. After three years, he went to work in the Salem-Keizer School District, teaching math at South Salem and McKay high schools.
After earning his administration degree in 2006, he worked as a behavior specialist at McNary High School in Keizer as a teacher on special assignment.
He had been applying for administrative jobs, and this one opened up, Looney said. “This one was a good fit. It’s awesome. I’m loving the community and the people I work with. Keith is amazing. He’s a great person to work for.”
He will continue to live on his farm near Victor Point, in the Silver Falls area, with his wife, Rebecca, and four children, including three sons, ages 5, 8 and 11, and a daughter, 13. He attends First Baptist Church in Silverton, where he has been involved in the Awana program for years.