Mitch Reed to Inspire Mount Marty Graduates with Commencement Address on Passion and Purpose

Mitch Reed, Florence, South Dakota, Superintendent of Schools, will give the commencement address to the Mount Marty University-Watertown undergraduate students on Saturday, April 26, 2025, in the Immaculate Conception Church and is excited to celebrate with the graduates and give back to the wonderful community.

Mitch Reed grew up in Brentford, South Dakota, and attended Northwestern High School in Mellette, where he met his wife, Shari. After high school, Reed attended Dakota Wesleyan University, where he played basketball and majored in history education. Reed graduated with his bachelor's degree in 2012 and later obtained his master's in principalship from Northern State University, Aberdeen, in 2015. He then began teaching at Waverly-South Shore. He taught there for five years and created a lasting impact on his sociology students.

In 2016, while teaching at Waverly-South Shore, Reed created a project for his students titled Cardboard Confessionals, where students answered six questions and thought deeply about their daily lives and what they desired for the future — the good and the bad. These thoughts were written down on slips of paper and placed in a cardboard box in the lunchroom. The answers were then shared anonymously in Reed's class, where his students discussed empathy and the respect of others. Reed said, "I believe in hands-on projects, being able to apply it to real-world concepts, and that did this. It's really easy to just teach out of a book and do that. But I wanted to be able to connect some of the material we were discussing to things kids could connect with, and we did that, even more so than I even thought we could." This project has impacted many students and Reed's life significantly, and Cardboard Confessionals has been adopted by many other educators since. "I have a strong passion for kids and building relationships with them," said Reed. "The project Cardboard Confessionals allowed me to build even stronger relationships with the students I worked with. I learned a great deal about how past experiences and backgrounds affect everyday living. It also allowed me to look at my life and evaluate my priorities. This journey of sharing my message has been a great one. I have met many strong people along the way who deserve all the credit in the world. The first step to helping those in need is to understand what they are going through!"

"Cardboard Confessionals" was published as a book in 2018. On April 3, 2019, Reed was presented with a South Dakota Hall of Fame Acts of Excellence award for "Cardboard Confessionals" on the Northern State University campus. Reed has spoken across the country about the Cardboard Confessionals project to impact others, including two of Dusty Johnson's, the United States representative for South Dakota, youth rally events in South Dakota.

Reed received his specialist in superintendency from the University of Sioux Falls in 2017, and after teaching at Waverly-South Shore, became the principal at Deubrook Elementary School before accepting the positions of director of special education, elementary school principal, and superintendent of schools in Florence. Reed desired to be superintendent of schools to increase his scope of impact and has been working in Florence for the last seven years. He said his experience at Northwestern High School "really kind of frames what I do today in education. I believe we need to provide opportunities for all students, and whether they take them or not is kind of on them. But if we can provide opportunities for all students, the same ones that I got, students have opportunities to succeed." He loves how every day is different as a superintendent of schools and the full-circle moments of watching his students succeed as adults. The Florence school district has added 100 students since Reed joined the district, and he is proud of the inviting culture they have built. "I think that's really neat, and it's taken work. We have a great staff to be able to do that in a great community, very supportive community."

He commutes from Watertown each day for work as he, his wife, and three children have been living in Watertown for the last 13 years. They fell in love with the community and never left. "The sense of community and how people celebrate success is so special there. I don't know if the community is very individual-based. I think when good things happen in Watertown, everyone's happy about it. That's cool. I know that's not in all communities, but that's how I feel anyway." 

Reed recently received his doctorate in educational leadership from Arkansas State University in 2024. Between his duties as superintendent of schools and his many presentations on "Cardboard Confessionals," Reed coaches girls' basketball, co-hosts his podcast titled "The Little Things" with his old college buddy, hosts Day of Development in Watertown for teachers and business professionals, and is the practicum and field experience director for Mount Marty University-Watertown as well as adjunct professor of their marriage and family class. One piece of advice he hopes his students learn from him is to not just follow your passion but bring your passion into your career. "A lot of people say follow your passion, and you won't work a day in your life. That gets hard from time to time. We need to find opportunities and bring our passion with us because not everything on the path of what we love is going to be easy. If we continue to just look for different opportunities in our day to bring our passion with us, kids really see that — people see that. The people you work with — you get vulnerable with people, and they respect you for it. I think that's when your true joy and your true passion for what you're doing comes out: when you're not just searching for something to do, but you're actually looking for opportunities to bring everything you love about it [your passion] to the job."

Reed plans to discuss a person's 'why' during his commencement speech and how to protect it. "This community in Watertown has done a lot for me, and this opportunity with Mount Marty has been great," said Reed. "I've gotten to know a lot of really good people here in Watertown because of it. It's cool to give back to the people who have worked hard to get where they are today, and they deserve to be celebrated."

The Watertown undergraduate commencement ceremony starts at 10 a.m. Program details can be found at mountmarty.edu/commencement. 

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ABOUT MOUNT MARTY UNIVERSITY 

Founded in 1936 by the Benedictine Sisters of Sacred Heart Monastery, Mount Marty University is South Dakota's only Catholic institution of higher education. Located along the bluffs of the Missouri River in Yankton, with additional locations in Watertown and Sioux Falls, Mount Marty offers undergraduate and graduate degrees focusing on student and alumni success in high-demand fields such as health sciences, education, criminal justice, business, accounting, and more. A community of learners in the Benedictine tradition, Mount Marty emphasizes academic excellence and develops well-rounded students with intellectual competence, professional and personal skills and moral, spiritual and social values. To learn more, visit mountmarty.edu.