After 23 years, Brad Diller has decided to retire at the end of the 2017-2018 school year.

Diller jokingly said, “Well I’m a senior citizen,” when asked what made him decide to retire, but then became serious and said, “There’s some things I wanna do. I would like to do some traveling and somethings like that. It’s just a good time. I mean I’ve had the best job ever.”

So what will Mr. Diller miss most?

“The kids because the best thing about Kelly Walsh High School has always been the kids, and if anyone says different, they are wrong.”

The kids have kept him young and hip for an “old guy” the past 23 years. Diller enjoyed watching the students come in as freshman and watch them grow. According to Mr. Diller, there is a sense of hope at Kelly Walsh High School and the kids can do some stuff that many generations before were never able to do. He said, “I’ll always have that sense of hope, I just won’t get to see it everyday.”

Diller said that he will still attend Kelly Walsh events; however, he wants to be as involved as the new principal wants him to be and doesn’t want to be looking over their shoulder.

When asked what his expectations are for the new principal, he said, “I don’t know if I have any expectations. I think that whoever comes here hopefully will value what our faculty and staff value and most importantly value what the kids value.”

The four pillars of Kelly Walsh which include academics, activities, athletics, and acceptance are what Diller hopes the new principal values and realizes that it’s always been about the kids.

Mr. Diller believes that just being a Trojan is unique and that the only thing that separates Kelly Walsh from everyone else is the people that go to the school everyday.  

“You’ve heard me probably say everybody has some computers and everybody has some gyms and everybody has some stuff, so what makes us different is the people that come here and how you treat each other and how you interact and what you value but that’s the only thing that makes us different.”

Brad Diller has so many great memories that he can’t even remember them all; however, he will always remember some of the senior pranks. He remembers when some seniors released 60,000 crickets into the school and the staff had to go around with vacuums to get all the crickets off the ceiling.

He will also always remember when the senior class would camp out in his front yard because he wouldn’t let them camp out at the school. He remembers calling his wife when he got home from work one night and saying, “They’re really coming.” Diller didn’t believe that the students would stay in his yard and when they told him that they were he laughed. Diller will forever cherish all of his memories from being the principal at Kelly Walsh for 23 years.

Diller asks that the students of Kelly Walsh accept the new principal whoever that may be.  

“Different isn’t worse, it’s just different,” said Diller.