NEW PRINCIPAL BEGINS AT TRINITY LUTHERAN

From the outside everything looks the same, but students at Trinity Lutheran School will notice some big changes inside when classes start next month.

Seeing Wesley Wrucke in the principal's office will be the biggest change. After 25 years principal Robert Hartmann retired at the end of last school year.

Wrucke, who was hired in January, started work last week as principal at Trinity Lutheran School, 55 N. Pacific St. The church-supported school considered Wrucke as an applicant before extending an invitation for a visit to Cape Girardeau.

Being in a new school and community means a lot of changes for Wrucke, who last headed a school of 100 students in kindergarten through eighth grade. About 260 students are enrolled for the 1996-97 school year at Trinity Lutheran school.

"This staff is a veteran staff which has its good qualities," Wrucke said. "This is the first year that I'm not teaching, and I look forward to focusing on the administration."

Since the Lebanon Lutheran School in Watertown, Wis., was so small, Wrucke had two duties: He served as school principal and taught math to older students.

"I know that I didn't do justice to both," he said. "I wasn't always there for after school and extra help, but there were times when I was in the classroom and couldn't leave to handle an administrative emergency."

Wrucke is excited about being a full-time administrator, but knows he'll still see plenty of classrooms during the year.

Wrucke started his career as a second-grade teacher and quickly moved to the junior-high level. While working for six years at public schools in Arizona, he had the opportunity to train as an administrator.

"I really enjoyed the year there," he said. "But I knew then that I wanted to go into administration." So he started working on his master's degree and eventually graduated from Concordia College in Mequon, Wis.

When he and his wife, Pam, moved from Arizona to Wisconsin in 1990, Wrucke took a job in the Lutheran parochial schools.

"I was ministering as a model in the public schools," he said. "That didn't bother me, but I like being able to share my faith."

He plans to share his faith at every opportunity now. "You have Christ-centered discipline. You can say that Christ will forgive you for that and work through it at that approach," he said of his discipline style. Public schools have a more rigid policy for discipline, he said.

But Wrucke won't spend the entire year as a disciplinarian; he also has a lot to learn about the school, its students and the community.

"I will be like a sponge -- absorbing and observing," he said. One of the first things Wrucke did when arriving at Trinity was meet with staff and teachers. He asked three things: what they valued at Trinity, what they wanted to change, and where they want the school to be by the year 2000.

"I will see how their responses fit with my styles," he said. "But if it's not broke, I won't tamper with it. After I get adjusted this year then they will notice more changes."

Wrucke and his wife have one son, Connor, who will attend preschool classes at Trinity Lutheran.