EVANSVILLE — Events to bid farewell to retiring Evansville Vanderburgh School Corp. Superintendent David Smith and to welcome successor Darla Hoover are scheduled over the next month.
What is billed as an EVSC “retirement celebration” for Smith will occur at 4:30 p.m. CST June 30 in the Old National Bank Atrium at 1 Main St. It will come at the conclusion of Smith’s final day on the job.
Smith is expected to make brief comments at the event, for which light refreshments will be provided.
On July 17, the Evansville Teachers Association and the Indiana State Teachers Association will host an invitation-only “welcome reception” for Hoover. The event begins at 10 a.m. Central at City View at Sterling Square at 210 North Fulton Avenue.
“Join educators, administrators, and community leaders for a vibrant celebration full of connection, conversation, and appreciation,” says an invitation to the event. “Meet Dr. Hoover face-to-face. Enjoy mouthwatering refreshments. Network with fellow education champions.”
Hoover is EVSC’s first female superintendent
Four months after Smith announced in January that he would retire effective July 1, the school board selected Hoover to succeed him.
Hoover was the epitome of an internal candidate in a national search that attracted 16 would-be superintendents in all.
Before applying for the superintendent job, Hoover had served EVSC for 24 years — as a chemistry teacher at Bosse High School, chair of the science department at Central High School, assistant principal of programming at Bosse, principal at Central and EVSC central office administrator.
The new superintendent is a graduate of Bosse herself. Her youngest son is an EVSC student, and her two older sons graduated from EVSC schools. Her current title in the school corporation’s hierarchy is chief of schools and instructional core. It means she oversees curriculum, instruction and academic support matters for EVSC, plus “multiple innovative models and programs,” according to a biography the school corporation created.
Hoover, 51, will be the first female superintendent in EVSC history.
Smith goes back 56 years with EVSC
Smith’s final school board meeting as superintendent will begin at 5:30 p.m. Monday at the EVSC Administration Building at 951 Walnut Street.
There were hundreds before this one.
The school board chose Smith, an Evansville native, to succeed departing Superintendent Vince Bertram in 2011.
Smith, who was then serving under Bertram as assistant superintendent of human resources and business affairs, had at that time been with EVSC for 29 years. He had been a teacher for 19 years, an assistant principal and a principal at Evans Middle School, an interim deputy superintendent, a band director at Reitz and Bosse high schools and an instructional music teacher at Thompkins Middle School.
Smith had been an EVSC student for 13 years before that, for a total of 56 years with the school corporation in one capacity or another.
School board members pointed out that Smith had been in the classroom and had been not just a building administrator, but a district administrator.
Smith, 65, told the Rotary Club of Evansville in May that he had first thought of retiring next year. But he realized that, that would leave whoever succeeded him just six months or so to work with the current school board before the board’s makeup potentially changed in elections.
Smith was asked after his Rotary appearance whether he had any advice for his successor.
“Listen twice as much as you talk,” he said. “We really do have great people in the EVSC. Take advantage of them.
“I never wanted to be the smartest guy in the room. That was not too much of a challenge for me. But I was blessed to have really smart people around me.”
This article originally appeared on Evansville Courier & Press: Events to celebrate EVSC Superintendent Smith, welcome successor Hoover are set
Reporting by Thomas B. Langhorne, Evansville Courier & Press / Evansville Courier & Press
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