The school servants — the superintendents as people

1853–2026 · FIFTEEN SUPERINTENDENTS, AND THE HOLES BETWEEN THEM

The early line: Fort Wayne Community Schools counts fifteen superintendents in its history, and the Schools section carries the line as an institution; the people are these. The Rev. George A. Irwin was the first; James H. Smart, who followed S. S. Green in the early order, left Fort Wayne to become president of Purdue University, the only superintendent here to trade the office for a university presidency. Justin N. Study held the office from 1896 into the next century and has Study Elementary for his monument; L. C. Ward (1920–32) has the L. C. Ward Education Center; Merle J. Abbett served twenty years, 1932–52, and saw Abbett Elementary dedicated as the city's first postwar school in 1950. Aaron T. Lindley was in office by the middle 1950s. The holders of 1952 to about 1955 — between Abbett's retirement and Lindley's appearance — are still not named in the record reached; the district's own printed directories at the public library hold them, and the space is left open here on purpose.

Lester Grile: The longest school service in this record belongs to Lester L. Grile. Born in Jay County on 8 October 1917, a veteran of both the Second World War and Korea, he worked twenty years in the Fort Wayne schools — principal of Harrison Hill and of South Side High School, then administrative assistant to Superintendent Lindley from 1955 — before becoming superintendent himself in 1961 and serving nineteen years, to 1980. His name is on the district's administrative center at 1200 South Clinton Street. His superintendency is also the one the federal government examined: the Indiana Advisory Committee's 1977 report on equal opportunity in the Fort Wayne schools is, in large part, an audit of decisions taken at Grile's desk, including his reorganization plan of 24 January 1977 — the superintendent as the named defendant of an era, in the schools' integration history as in their building history.

Anthis, Fowler-Finn, and the 1994 search: Grile's successor is fixed by the federal court record rather than by any directory: Dr. Bill C. Anthis was superintendent by May 1981, and he is the superintendent named as defendant in Parents for Quality Education v. Fort Wayne Community Schools, the desegregation suit filed in 1986 and dismissed with prejudice in the Fort Wayne Division on 24 January 1990. Anthis's exact first and last days are not established in the sources reached; the office stood vacant sometime before April 1994, when the board's search for his successor itself became a federal case — five Black residents sued, alleging the board had refused to consider African American applicants (Clay v. Fort Wayne Community Schools, dismissed by the Seventh Circuit in 1996 for want of standing, none of the plaintiffs having applied). The board chose Dr. Thomas Fowler-Finn, who served through 2002–03 with Wendy Robinson as his deputy.

Robinson and Daniel: Wendy Robinson's service is the fullest career in this entire section: hired as a third-grade teacher at Ward Elementary in 1973, principal of Haley, Weisser Park and Memorial Park schools, assistant superintendent from 1997, and superintendent from 2003 to 30 June 2020 — forty-seven years in the one district, the last seventeen at its head. She was the first woman, the first African American, and the first graduate of the district itself to hold the superintendency; she was named Indiana Superintendent of the Year and the Journal Gazette's co-Citizen of the Year, and the district renamed its Family & Community Engagement Center for her in 2022, a year before her death on 18 August 2023, aged seventy-two. Her successor is the second graduate to hold the office: Dr. Mark Daniel, North Side class of 1979, a North Side teacher from 1986, principal of Leo Junior/Senior High for twelve years and superintendent at Dowagiac, Michigan, and at Normal, Illinois, before the board brought him home — approved 27 May 2020, in office 1 July 2020, the district's fifteenth superintendent.

Sources:

1. Schools section of this history and its sources — the superintendents' line, the school namings, the 1977 advisory report.
2. R. Nelson Snider High School, Safari yearbook (1980), dedication to Lester L. Grile (e-yearbook.com) — Grile's birth, war service, twenty prior years, 1961 start and nineteen-year term.
3. Stewart v. Fort Wayne Community Schools, 564 N.E.2d 274 (Ind. 1990) — Anthis superintendent by May 1981. Parents for Quality Education v. Fort Wayne Community Schools, 728 F. Supp. 1373 (N.D. Ind. 1990) — Anthis in office, January 1990. Clay v. Fort Wayne Community Schools, 76 F.3d 873 (7th Cir. 1996) — the vacancy, the 1994 search and Fowler-Finn's selection.
4. Around Fort Wayne and FWCS, 27 May 2020 — Daniel's approval as fifteenth superintendent and Robinson's forty-seven years; ACGSI, R surnames — Robinson's honors and career.