The Uintah County School Board recently extended the contract of Superintendent Mark Dockins through mid-2013.

Dockins, 42, became superintendent in late August 2009 after health issues forced then-schools chief Charlie Nelson to take a medical leave of absence. At the time, Dockins was the district’s director of student services. He was initially given a two-year contract at $95,000 annually.

As part of the contract extension, Dockins will receive a salary increase to $115,000 annually.

The board evaluated Dockins during a closed session at its retreat in early August and voted to approve his contract extension and salary increase soon after. The board also evaluated the district’s business administrator, Randy Upton, but has yet to vote on his contract extension.

“We’re on the same page,” Dockins said of the relationship between district administrators and the school board.

Dockins, who was born in Florida but grew up in Casper, Wyo., said he and his family feel at home in Vernal. He has lived here since 1994, the year he took a job as an English teacher at Uintah High School.

“When I first moved here in 1994, my thought was, ‘Well, I can do this for a year.’ But we stayed. And this is where my two kids were born and we’re Vernalites now,” Dockins said. “I love the culture here, the outdoors and being in a small community.”

Dockins holds an undergraduate degree in English and a master’s in curriculum and instruction from the University of Nebraska in Lincoln. He served as a middle school teacher in Lincoln before moving to Vernal.

After working as a teacher at Uintah High, he became an assistant principal at the same school in 2001. In 2004 he was the school’s interim principal and a year later he began working in the district office.