When students at Watkins Mill High School think of heavy metal, they think of music. But to the principal of WMHS, it means something different.

It means lifting weights and winning Miss Oklahoma.

When she was 25, principal Carol Goddard began her career in bodybuilding. “This gym sponsored me. They paid my way, so to speak, to go to the club: A, to carry their name, [and] B, and to sponsor and pay for my expenses.”

Goddard did a lot of sports before, from field hockey to basketball and more, but bodybuilding was something different. “It was something else I hadn’t done,” Goddard said.

Throughout the course of five years, she won Miss Oklahoma and third place in Tulsa. “I actually competed and won a spot to go to the Nationals and the Americas, but that’s where it stopped,” she said. “It was enough after five years.”

Bodybuilding was not something Goddard wanted to continue with as a career. “And like anything else, I did the most that I could possibly do, you know, and then I’m ready to do something else,” Goddard said. Bodybuilding was just one of the many sports she tried. To this day, she still does lightweight, along with other forms of exercise.

If any students were planning to go into bodybuilding, then “you’ve got to do it cleanly,” Goddard advised. “When you see somebody that’s really bulky, ripped, just so so big and ripped, they’re probably doing something illegal.” For Goddard, doing this the right way was easy. “I was lucky that in my genetics, really, it’s pretty easy for me to develop muscle.”

Weight training teacher Jason Tringone agrees that bodybuilding needs to be done healthily. He is enthusiastic about anyone who wants to bodybuild. “People that have a passion for it, a career for it, I’m all for it,” Tringone said.

Tringone added, “I think [Goddard’s history of bodybuilding is] awesome. I think that’s super cool. I haven’t gotten the chance to talk about it with her, and I hope I can get to it at some point.”