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Leadership Team

Lamar School’s Leadership Team works collaboratively to support the school's mission and core values across all areas of the school. The Leadership Team works together to operationalize Lamar School's strategic plan and support each other in their respective administrative roles. The team is led by the Head of School and is comprised of three divisional principals, director of finance and financial aid, director of athletics, director of technology, director of academic counseling, and the director of facilities. 

Leigh Ann Ballou

Leigh Ann Ballou

Head of School

Leigh Ann Ballou has served as Head of Lamar School since 2013. Through her vision and leadership, Lamar School has evolved into one of the most preeminent independent schools in our association. 

Ballou serves on the Board of Trustees for the Southern Association of Independent Schools as well as the Athletic and Activities Commission for the Midsouth Association of Independent Schools. She travels the country as the accreditation chair for SAIS teams and has served on numerous SAIS and MAIS accreditation teams throughout the Southeast. 

A native of the Meridian area, Ballou attended Lamar School and then Meridian High School, graduating in 1989. She received a bachelors in elementary education at Mississippi State University and later received a Masters of Educational Leadership at MSU-Meridian. She worked as an elementary teacher in Rankin County as well as Lamar Elementary before being named principal at Lamar Elementary School in 2011. With a diverse background in the classroom and in school administration, Ballou’s educational experience spans three decades, two of which have been spent in independent schools. 

Ballou is proud to lead Lamar School’s excellent faculty and staff and appreciates being  part of a school family that recognizes so much hope and promise in the next generation. She enjoys working around young people daily, watching them grow up in the years they are at Lamar, and welcoming them back for a visit when they come home. 

Ballou and her husband, Will, have three children, Mary Webb (’16), Charlie (’18), and George (’24) and are grateful for the many opportunities each has had as a Lamar School student.

Chris Price

High School Principal

Chris Price has enjoyed a nearly two-decade career focused on operating and improving non-public schools.  Having spent time as a classroom teacher, as a member of an administrative team, and as a Head of School, Price knows the challenge and value of serving at each level of the educational structure.  His scholastic philosophy centers around the student experience: how to individualize it to benefit each student, how to shape it to result in higher performance and achievement, and how to improve it for the overall school community.

Being actively involved with an organization focused on policies and procedures that are proven as best practices is a priority for Price.  Since 2010 he has served as an accreditation team member for Cognia, where he now serves as a member of the advisory board.  In this capacity he enjoys leading accreditation reviews of schools while promoting higher levels of student engagement and performance. 

Price founded The Independent Virtual Academy in 2014 to provide online options to students enrolled in independent schools throughout the southeast US and internationally. Support from and promotion by state-level independent school association offices has permitted the program to serve over 5,000 students to date.  This effort has ingrained in him the details and processes necessary to develop, shape, operate, and sustain a thriving independent school.  Relationships established and lessons learned from this venture will be used to benefit students at Lamar School.

After graduating from Lamar School in 1992, Price proceeded to earn his B.S. (Biology) from Millsaps College and his D.M.D. from UMMC before establishing a dental practice. Upon changing career paths, he earned his M. Ed. (Educational Leadership & Supervision) from Delta State and completed the MAIS Leadership Institute. As a proponent of lifelong learning, Price continues to enjoy coursework leading to personal advancement or certification with his latest achievement being receipt of his UAS Remote Pilot license.

Price spends his free time enjoying travel with his wife DeeDee (LS c/o 1992) and his daughters Isabel (LS c/o 2021) and Emily (LS c/o 2024). Fans of boating, diving, and other watersports, most of their travels take them to coastal areas of Florida or the Keys

Linday Dulaney

Middle School Principal

Linda Dulaney is a thirty-seven-year veteran educator in the Meridian/Lauderdale County area, having worked in both the public and independent school setting.  Dulaney retired from a career in public education after twenty-eight years, where she served as a classroom teacher, instructional facilitator, assistant principal, head principal, and district-level administrator.  In 2014, she began a second career at Lamar School as the secondary principal for 6th -12th grade.  Currently, Dulaney serves Lamar School as middle school principal.

Dulaney is a 1980 graduate of West Lauderdale High School.  She attended Meridian Community College and graduated from Mississippi State University with a degree in elementary and education.  She earned her master’s degree in elementary education with an endorsement in gifted education from Mississippi State University and earned a second master’s degree in educational leadership from the University of West Alabama.  Dulaney was named Lauderdale County’s Teacher of the Year in 2000 and was selected as a runner up in the Meridian Star’s Best School Principal Reader’s Choice Awards in 2021.  She is a member of the Mississippi Professional Educators Association.

Married for forty-two years to Robert Dulaney, the couple has three married children and five grandchildren - three of whom live in Meridian and attend Lamar School.  Dulaney considers it a unique advantage to be able to witness first-hand the positive impact of the Lamar School difference as she observes her grandchildren growing and learning each year.  Dulaney and her husband attend First Baptist Church of Collinsville and enjoy being a part of all the events and activities in the lives of their grandchildren. 

Dulaney holds a passion for middle school education and for the unique approach independent schooling provides for families and students.  She has worked to create a middle school division at Lamar School where the educators are intentional and focused in their work with the middle school aged student, understanding that these years are a time of intense emotional, physical, and cognitive change and growth for students. Together with the middle school faculty, Dulaney works to create an environment where middle school students learn to lead themselves in positive ways and grow in their independence and understanding of their place in the world.

 

 

Erin Honeycutt

Elementary Principal

With almost two decades of experience in education, Erin Honeycutt has always had a passion for inspiring a love of learning. While Honeycutt is an alumna of Lamar School and her family is originally from Meridian, she spent most of her childhood living all across the country, never attending the same school for more than three years. These varied experiences gave her a unique perspective on education. 

Honeycutt began her career in Meridian Public Schools at Parkview Elementary, teaching fourth and first grades. In 2011, she was the very first hire of Head of School Leigh Ann Ballou. At Lamar, Honeycutt has served in the roles of classroom teacher, technology director, and elementary director of admissions and academics before taking on the role of elementary principal in 2016. 

Honeycutt received a Bachelor of Science in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of Southern Mississippi, a Master’s in Elementary Education and an Educational Specialist in Educational Leadership, both from Mississippi State University. She was voted teacher of the year at Parkview Elementary School in 2009 and helped initiate and develop the one-to-one Apple Program and the S.T.E.M. Labs at Lamar School. 

Her husband, Grant Honeycutt, is also an alumnus of Lamar School and a local business owner of Woodstock Furniture. Together they have two boys, Anderson and Samuel, who both attend Lamar. A teacher at heart, Honeycutt’s first love has always been in the lower school where she helps students find their joy for learning,  and she loves every minute of being a servant leader. When not absorbed in all things elementary, you can usually find Mrs. Honeycutt on the family farm walking her goats and dog, trying (not very successfully) to grow a garden as beautiful as her grandmother’s, or at the field with her boys watching a sports practice or game.