Following the retirement of longtime Sampson Middle School Principal Dr. Tony Faison, former assistant Kenan Lanier takes over where Faison leaves off.
The move was announced earlier this month, as Faison chose to retire at the end of the 2025-26 school year. Before his time as an assistant principal, Lanier was a student of the Dark Horse system, graduating from Clinton High School in 2013. After graduating from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington with his teaching degree, he started his educational journey as a Sampson Middle teacher in 2017.
He became a Sampson Middle assistant principal in 2023, and served there two years before taking the AP role at Clinton High School for the 2025-26 school year. Now, he serves as principal for the first time in his educational administrative career. In addition to being a teacher, he coached soccer at Clinton High and baseball at Sampson Middle for six years.
“I was super excited, honored, and humbled by the opportunity,” Lanier said when he got the news.” I’m just blessed to be in a position where I’m able to serve in a leadership role in the community that raised me. It helped make me who I am today, so being able to really say that I’m a lifelong Dark Horse is something that I take pride in. Getting the news that I was going to be principal here, it was a full circle moment for sure.”
Coming from a long line of educators, with his mom (Kim Lanier) and later his wife (Mercedes Lanier) in those roles, the value of what teaching and education does for the community was something Lanier experienced firsthand, along with his experience as a coach.
“It was always instilled in me,” he explained. “I have a love for sports, which is really where a lot of it came from. I wanted to get into the coaching realm, because I knew I wasn’t going to make it to the Major Leagues or anything. So being able to coach and share my passion for kids and seeing them excel, I figured teaching and coaching was a good pathway to do that. Helping someone to grow in their education to make them a better person, better student, a better overall individual of character, is something that you can’t really put a price on.”
With the upcoming 2026-27 school year being his first at Sampson Middle, building a strong foundation around his faculty staff with collaboration and team building was one of the goals that Lanier identified as important to him. He also wants to help turn around Sampson Middle’s status as a low-performing school, using the data collected in the past to help the curriculum and instruction gradually improve.
“The best schools are run with a unified group,” he emphasized, “a group that’s here for the good of the kids. That’s our purpose here. Every educator in this building, in the district, anywhere, they got in it because they have a love for kids. They want to see kids do well. That’s what I hope to do. I hope that the students at Sampson Middle see that they’re cared about. I want the students of Sampson Middle to see that they have potential and the ability to achieve great things.”
As he transitions from assistant principal, Lanier understands the difference between the two roles, but believes that his time spent as an AP gave him a lot of preparation for his new position.
“You always hear the principal is the instructional leader of the building,” he said. “In my time as an AP, I think I became a better instructional leader. I’ve worked with great administrators who have given me exposure, advice, and wisdom on different things instructionally. That made me stronger as an assistant principal, and I hope to carry that into my time as principal. As an AP, you have to be able to balance all the different things that are thrown your way daily, so prioritizing quality over quantity is important. I might have 10 tasks that I want to do that day, but I’d rather get four or five of them done to the highest quality possible rather than all 10 to just check a box, but the quality isn’t there.”
Among those administrators was Faison, under whom Lanier had the chance to learn from for two years.
“Dr. Faison has been almost like a mentor to me,” Lanier expressed. “One of the things that he really emphasized was that the students come first. Putting the students first when making my decisions, because I know what’s in the best interest of the kids. Staying true to myself was also important, staying true to the decision that I make. Knowing that what I’m doing is helping the school as a whole. That’s the ultimate goal: putting the whole building in the position to succeed by keeping people first. I try to take that with me every day.”
As he takes on the mantle of principal, Lanier identified that the relationship that the Dark Horse family shares with many inside the community is one of the reasons why Clinton City Schools is so great, even with the district being a smaller one.
“Only having the five schools in the district, it allows you to build relationships,” Lanier pointed out. “Building relationships helps build people. It builds students and teachers, because there is so much talent, dedication, and passion already within Clinton City Schools and Sampson Middle. If I had to choose between one of these bigger, huge districts or Clinton City, I’m taking Clinton City every day. I think we have resources available to us that weren’t available when I was a student of Clinton City Schools. As it continues to grow academically, I think a part of that is mostly because of the people and their dedication.” ‘
As August approaches, Lanier hopes to serve the students of Sampson Middle and the community by being a role model and mentor to the student, making sure that every student can receive a quality education and that the middle school can be the best it can be. Those two things, Lanier believes, can be achieved when parents, teachers, and everyone are on the same page. To him, that’s when it’s great to be a Dark Horse.