The Habersham County Board of Education began their January meeting with a moment of silence in memory of Coach Shane Dover, a beloved coach and Habersham teacher, who died last week.
“What a wonderful person he was, what a great Christian example he was, what a leader he was in this school system,” Chairman Russ Nelson said during the BOE’s invocation. “There are shoes there that won’t be filled. There are other people that will walk in those steps, but they may not fit quite like Shane did.”
Dover’s wife, Kristie Dover, who serves on the Habersham Board of Education, did not attend Monday night’s meeting. Nelson prayed for peace for her in her loss, as well as their three sons, Sawyer, Sutton and Slade.
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Habersham County Superintendent Matthew Cooper began his monthly report by paying tribute to Dover and recounting his impact on Habersham’s students.
“I’m not sure anybody enjoyed being a teacher more than Shane Dover,” Cooper said. “He absolutely loved being a teacher, and of course, it was his second career. He retired from the Department of Transportation, and he would tell you [that] he was living his dream job. I went to his classroom on a number of occasions, and he was the kind of teacher that the students just loved because he put so much into it.”
According to Cooper, around 150 students attended Dover’s memorial service at Habersham Central High School on Saturday. He said around half the attendees were students.
“It was a beautiful memorial service Saturday,” Cooper told the BOE. “It really touched my heart.”
The board has asked the community to continue to pray for peace for the Dover family during this painful period of loss.
