Students disliked him from the start. He was a mousy but stubborn man who regarded music, athletics and other extracurricular activities as worthless educational frills. When the school board chose him as superintendent and principal of the Twinsburg township school in northeastern Ohio, some parents protested. But Glen L. Powell, 51the town's fourth superintendent in six yearswas just the sort of man old-fashioned Twinsburgers on the school board had been looking for.
Soon Powell and his educational principles became the talk of the township. The music teacher resigned: she had been assigned only to running study halls. The athletic coach quit because...