By John Balch
News-Leader staff
The South Pike County School Board filled one of two vacancies in the district’s basketball program during a special meeting held Monday night.
The board voted 5-2 to hire Blevin Boyd as the new Lady Rattler head coach.
Boyd will come to Murfreesboro from the Spring Hill School District where he was head boys’ basketball coach and assistant to the girls’ teams, as well as girls’ track head coach and physical education teacher.
Boyd’s work experience includes coaching girls’ basketball and softball at Mountain Pine and heading up the basketball program at Palestine-Wheatley. He was also a volunteer assistant basketball coach from 2012-2016 at Kirby.
Boyd’s resume lists his top accomplishments as leading the Spring Hill Bears to a postseason district tournament championship in 2024-2025 and being named coach of the year that same year.
The split vote to hire Boyd came after a 22-minute closed executive session. Board members voting to hire Boyd included Cory Ballard, Robert Silva, Scott Maroon, Alyssa Duggan and Wes Campbell with Andrea McRae and Barbie Baxter voting against the hire.
Boyd will replace Nicole Martin, who was reassigned to the elementary PE program after several seasons as Lady Rattler head coach.
Boyd was chosen from a list of 12 other applicants, including:
– Kayla Sharp-Estep, Magnolia softball coach
– Rachelle Erwin, Murfreesboro elementary counselor and former head coach at Ashdown
– Darren Horn, assistant football coach and head track coach at Murfreesboro
– Reagan McCormick, first-year assistant coach at Morrilton
– Levi Lock, first-year coach at Hampton
– Nate Davis, girls head coach at Star City, former junior college head coach and assistant at Ouachita Baptist University
– Jason Barker, former head coach at De Queen
– Randall Henderson, retired head coach in Texas
– Clayton Ray, boys’ coach at Ouachita.
– Jordan Shanks, first-year assistant at Prescott
– Cody Byrd, volunteer assistant at Hamburg
– Kendall Kirchoff, assistant coach at Cabot
The board will now resume its search for a new Rattler head coach following the departure of Buster Bonner, who came out of retirement to lead the Rattlers this past season and fulfilled his one-year contract with the district.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
