The Wright City R-II School District recently announced Justin Rodgers as their new activities director. 

Rodgers, who has over 15 years of experience in education and athletics, will assume his position on July 1. 

Rodgers expressed enthusiasm about joining the Wright City community and the future of its student activities. 

“Once I got here, I continued to fall in love with what I was seeing,” Rodgers said. “Wright City has amazing facilities and it’s really exciting to be a part of the beginning stages of something like this with the facilities. It’s a lot of responsibility but I’m ready for it and excited for the opportunity.” 

Having grown up in Kentucky, Rodgers has always been a Wildcat fan – a connection he now carries into his new role in Wright City.

“Wearing blue and being a Wildcat in a different way is pretty exciting,” Rodgers said. 

Rodgers began his athletics and education career at Grandview R-II School District, where he worked as a physical education teacher and coached boys basketball and baseball. His journey continued at Winfield, where he led the baseball program as head coach and assisted in both basketball and softball. 

For the past seven years, Rodgers served in the Lincoln County R-III School District, where he was Troy Buchanan’s head baseball coach, assistant softball coach, junior high basketball coach and physical education teacher. 

Additionally, he currently serves as the president of the Missouri High School Baseball Coaches Association, where he has connected with various athletic personas throughout the state. 

“It’s definitely helped me be better connected through different areas of the state and I think that’s important as an administrator,” he said. 

Rodgers grew up playing both baseball and basketball. He played collegiate baseball at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. 

Outside of his profession, he and his wife Karey have two children, Kally (8) and Kash (5).

Rodgers also arrives with established relationships within the district. He previously worked with R-II Superintendent Amy Salvo during their time at Troy South Middle School and has known incoming Wright City High School Principal Jason Theodorakos through their shared involvement in high school baseball. 

“Knowing those two people and knowing what we’re building here at Wright City, it was exciting for me to be a part of it,” Rodgers said.  

As activities director, Rodgers hopes to create a strong, supportive environment for student programs. 

“I want to have programs that are helping students and helping them become better people,” he said. “Hopefully, they get something out of it and they become better people because they’re part of our programs. I also hope to continue building on what we have, things such as having a freshman team for certain sports or playing a full junior varsity schedule.”

Rodgers emphasized his desire to build community connections, while taking pride in the role.

“As I’ve gotten older in coaching, I’ve started to enjoy the part about taking pride in your community, so it’s exciting to take that from coaching and be able to feed that out to all of our programs here at Wright City,” Rodgers said. “It’s exciting to look at it from the lens of multiple programs, multiple coaches, multiple student athletes and trying to make an impact in that area.”