Once a Panther, Always a Panther

A number of our  Carolina Forest High School faculty attended CFHS as a student. Carolina Forest is filled with alumni who help better and educate students every single day, helping to inspire students academically and emotionally as they continue their life journey.

Our alumni are Morgan Bane, Abigail Dew, Kristen Dutka, Destiny Eagles, Sarah Ferrington, Jenna Mason, Jenna Miller, Kevin McCarey, Alisha Petrizzo, Amy Perry, Matt Sassi, Marceli Turner, and Devin Weeks. 

Being an alumni who was a student and a teacher is pretty cool but becoming an assistant principal is even cooler. Jenna Mason stepped into this leadership position this fall.

Mason graduated from Carolina Forest High School and attended Coastal Carolina University as an undecided major. Originally, Mason went to college just to make her parents proud and happy because they are a family who values education. Mason then decided that college was not for her and worked at Build-a-Bear and later at Golden Corral.  She realized that retail and the food industry was not for her.

This led Mason to sign up for classes at Horry Georgetown Technical College. The admissions office suggested she major in administrative office technology. Due to her excelling in the program, one of her professors recommended that she should apply for a job in the Teaching Excellence Center. In addition to being a full time student and managing her grades at HGTC, Mason was also working there, creating websites for the college.   

Mason graduated with her associates in office systems technology and then went back to CCU and majored in Business Management. After she graduated from Coastal, she was unsure of what to do with her degree. Mason worked on getting a teaching certificate through an alternative program and became a Career and Technology Education (CATE) teacher.

Mason taught for nine years at Carolina Forest before becoming an administrator. Mason decided that she wanted to pursue this career because she loved helping students. 

Being a teacher, she was only really allowed to help students in her class. On the other hand, being an administrator, she has the ability to tend to many more students’ needs. 

Mason states, “When teaching I was able to see the same students every day. When they were struggling with understanding a unit and finally had that “light bulb” moment, it made me realize why I was in the classroom. As an administrator, I don’t get to see the light bulb moments anymore. However, now I get to help so many more students on so many more levels.”

In addition to the many accomplishments in Mason’s career, she was the Senior Class Sponsor for Student Council for eight years, won the 2020-21 CFHS Core Award and was also on Prom Committee. 

CFHS is lucky to have Mason, as well as the other alumni, as part of our Panther family.