Photo courtesy Hoover City Schools.
Robert Bumpus, Hoover’s school superintendent from 1991 to 1996, is remembered as a kindhearted, humble leader who helped guide the school system out of a tumultuous time and bring healing.
The name Robert Bumpus brings smiles to the faces of many who worked for him when he was Hoover’s school superintendent from 1991 to 1996.
Many were quick to praise him when they heard that he had died on July 26 at the age of 90. Multiple people who worked closely with him described him as a kindhearted, humble leader who helped guide the school system out of a tumultuous time and bring healing.
Hoover’s first permanent superintendent, Robert Mitchell, was fired after having a rough relationship with city officials that included a $21 million defamation of character lawsuit.
Bumpus, who had been superintendent for Midfield City Schools from about 1975 to 1985 and then Homewood City Schools from 1985 to 1991, was brought in and helped restore amicable relations between the city and school system and guide the school district through a period of rapid growth.
Four schools were opened during his tenure — Trace Crossings Elementary, Hoover High, South Shades Crest Elementary and Greystone Elementary — and a third middle school was named after Bumpus following his retirement.
People thought so much of Bumpus that the Hoover City Council in 2003 appointed him to serve on the Hoover school board as his successor, Jack Farr, battled brain cancer. Bumpus was considered a stabilizing presence for the school system.
His career in education started in 1959 in the Jefferson County school system. He served as a teacher, principal, director of middle and elementary schools and director of instruction for Decatur City Schools and Jefferson County schools, before becoming superintendent in Midfield.
Bumpus married his wife, Norma, in 1995, and the couple were married for 61 years until her death in 2016. They had a son, Robert Bumpus III, who died in 2014, and a daughter, Laronda DeLong.
Both Bumpus and his wife were very active in the Nazarene church, while in college in Bethany, Oklahoma, and later at Birmingham First Church of the Nazarene and Decatur First Church of the Nazarene.
They worked with children and youth, leading Bible quiz groups and youth choirs, and he ran a bus ministry to bring children to church. Both of them helped plant Forestdale Nazarene Church, served on the Alabama Nazarene District Council and hosted missionaries, pastors and other people in need in their home. Bumpus also was involved with Trevecca Nazarene University in Tennessee.
Gary McBay, who served as Hoover’s director of school services under Bumpus, described Bumpus as a godly person who treated people with respect.
“There were some people that looked at individuals within the system and felt that they were just disposable. Mr. Bumpus was not that way,” McBay said. “He was a person that looked for ways to help a person to become a team player and to add value to the system.”
A lot of new superintendents will look for weaker people in the organization and work to clean house, but that wasn’t the way Bumpus operated, McBay said. “He gave everybody a fair chance to prove their worth.”
Bumpus also spent a lot of time working to instill strong character, McBay said. He wanted faculty and students alike to operate on a higher moral plane, McBay said.
He purchased former U.S. Department of Education Secretary William Bennett’s book, “The Book of Virtues,” for all administrators and went through a book study with them. “He wanted those virtues to be instilled in students,” McBay said.
The Finley Awards, which are character awards given out each year in Hoover schools, were an outgrowth of that.
Connie Williams, whom Bumpus hired as the first principal of Hoover High School and who went on to be Hoover’s fourth permanent superintendent, said Bumpus was one of the most humble men she has ever known.
When he hired her, he told her opening a new high school would be a challenge, but he would be there to assist every step of the way, and he was, she said. “When he told you something, he meant it.”
Yet at the same time, Bumpus was a very good delegator, Williams said. “He had a knack for knowing people’s strengths. He would give you an assignment, and he would get out of the way and let you do it,” Williams said. “He had a way of bringing out the best in people. People respected him enough that they didn’t want to let him down.”
