While she isn’t cocky and flamboyant like, say, the district’s first superintendent, Jerry Weast...

The Guilford County [North Carolina] school board cast a nationwide search for its newest superintendent.

But in the end the final choice for the job was right here all along.

Whitney Oakley, chosen from among a field of more than 30 candidates, was already on the Guilford County Schools staff as acting superintendent, and before that, deputy superintendent to her predecessor, Sharon Contreras.

In fact, Oakley is a Guilford County native who attended Guilford County Schools from grades K through 12 and held her first teaching job here.

Today she has two children enrolled in GCS schools.

Her firm local roots also make her an anomaly.

No Guilford County Schools superintendent before her was born, raised and educated here. Not Contreras. Not Maurice “Mo” Green. Not Terry Grier. And not Jerry Weast...

...While she isn’t cocky and flamboyant like, say, the district’s first superintendent, Jerry Weast, or Terry Grier (who was its most inventive, but sometimes irked even his allies), there is a quiet assurance in her manner...

Allen Johnson: A native daughter embraces her biggest challenge | Columnists | greensboro.com