“My aunt is an educator. She was education assistant superintendent in a district in Illinois. So growing up not only her but my family in general, my parents and my dad always encouraged me to do different things and seek out the best path for myself but her and education-wise, I kind of mimicked her path when it came to grad school and pursuing my doctorate. She greatly influenced me with all of that. I regret not getting involved in more like clubs when I was in high school. I played sports for the most part. In my high school, you’d have to choose between one of the two. Originally, I always wanted to be in education administration. I wanted to be athletic director. When I first went to school, it was my first go. After being in school and going to grad school and seeing the job of some of the athletic directors and the amount of time they have to put in after school, for supervising activities and other things, changed my focus to the principal route. I found the principal route gives you an opportunity to have a more, more of a positive impact on a large number of students. Everybody doesn’t play athletics or do activities. Everybody does go to school. So you have to figure out ways to best, you know, make students as successful as they can in this role,” Heavens said.