John Bradley's new work environment offers an assortment of challenges, including the fact that Aiken Middle School's attendance zone reaches out for more than 25 miles around the school.

As the school's new principal, the North Augusta resident serves an area that reaches well past Windsor and the state park, with some homes about 26 miles from the school.

"One of my plans is to get the outlying parents into the school more, as well as all parents," said Bradley, who is not related to the former Aiken County Board of Education member of the same name.

Aiken Middle's coverage area is low-income, he confirmed. "We're 78.5 percent poverty, and ... we have lots of additional support from the district comes in because of that situation."

The first couple of classes the first few weeks of school have been rewarding in Bradley's assessment. He gave a thumbs-up review to his faculty and staff. "The overall idea is to surround myself with really good people, and everything else will work itself out, and we'll obviously continue to build on some things that were put in place here. This school is really in a great position with me coming in, and I just want to work hard to continue moving us in that direction."

Bradley is one of six first-time principals in the district, having spent the past year as an assistant principal at North Augusta High, serving as "a positive role model for teachers and students," in the words of Jane Kaplenski, a guidance counselor at the high school.

"I worked with him on several levels," she wrote, "and he was always professional. I could go to him with confidential matters and trust him. He will make an excellent principal. I miss him as a coworker, but I know that we will always be friends."

Bradley grew up near Camden, on the outskirts of Rembert, a village of about 400 people. His parents owned several hundred acres of farmland, which they leased, but did keep hogs and chickens.

"It was a fun place to grow up," he said. "I did a lot of hunting and fishing and dirt bike-riding when I got older. My dad always said, 'Don't hire somebody for something you can do yourself.' So we did repairs and built barns and everything else."

When he enrolled at Presbyterian College to play football, Bradley knew he wanted to become a teacher and took 21 hours his final semester, so he could get a double major in social studies and history. He spent 21âÑ2 years as a teacher and coach at Wade Hampton High in Greenville and three years at Hillcrest High in Simpsonville.

Bradley and his family then moved to North Augusta, and he taught and coached at Hephzibah High in Richmond County. He spent four years in the same role before going into administration after getting his master's degree from Augusta State University. Bradley praised the principals he served as an assistant principal - Brenda Smith, then at Paul Knox, and Kyle Smith, who recently left North Augusta High to become Kennedy Middle's principal.

These days, Bradley and his wife of 15 years, Leslie, have two sons: Colby, 12, a seventh-grader at Paul Knox Middle; and Heyden, 9, a fourth-grader at Mossy Creek Elementary. The lady of the house teaches pre-kindergarten in Richmond County at Rollins Elementary.

The family lives off Ascauga Lake Road and attends First Baptist Church of North Augusta. Household priorities at the moment include some home improvement.

"We have an unfinished basement ... and we are actually finishing that ourselves - doing all the electrical, heating and air, hanging sheet rock, everything."

Bradley pointed out that hunting season is on the near horizon. "I just enjoy getting outside. If I don't shoot anything, then so be it, but I just enjoy getting out, and there's some solitude - time alone, peace and quiet. That's the big thing."