She comes from a small town in rural Alaska and has worked at a school with only around 125 students.

She worked in Coolidge, Arizona, another town with a Native American reservation right on its border.

She even quilts.

Cheryl Sullivan is the new principal for the high school and middle school in La Conner, which has seen many big changes at the school district following the so-called Great Wolf Lodge tax decision and the ambitious construction of a new middle school.

“I’ve been walking around, trying the restaurants, trying to figure out what makes (La Conner) tick,” said Sullivan. “I love i...