The school servants: superintendents, the board's long members, and a secretary of thirty years

1848 – today

The succession at documented strength: The Schools section owns the school system's history; the men and women who ran it are servants, and their line is kept here. The first superintendent the record names is the first the system had: Mr. Butts, who had kept his own school and was employed by the city as superintendent when the five-room brick Institute No. 1 opened in 1848, with Jacob Merrifield, Jefferson Merrifield and Miss Skinner as his assistants — the whole central office of 1848 in one sentence of the high school's own history. The nineteenth century's line after Butts is not in the sources reached. It resumes with John F. Nuner, whom the federal Bureau of Education's directory of 1912 records as Mishawaka's superintendent, appointed in August 1903 on a term running to 31 July 1913 at $2,100 a year — and who in 1910 called the high school's 282 alumni together and reorganized the alumni association, a superintendent building the institution's memory as well as its schools.

P. C. Emmons, the great superintendent: The 1921 directory's schools pages name the superintendent: P. C. Emmons, newly come from ten years as superintendent at Kendallville. The high school's yearbook of 1924 finds him "firmly established"; the yearbook of 1930 counts nine years of faithful service behind him; the yearbook of 1937 prints his portrait still in the office, "largely responsible for the high rating of the Mishawaka schools," with the high school at 545 pupils in a building built for 400 and Emmons forming the committee that chose the answer — the 1924 high school the Schools section describes. Sixteen years of superintendency are documented between the directory and the last yearbook, and the elementary map may carry his verdict: Emmons Elementary, opened 1958, bears the surname. The naming record itself was not reached or in the Schools pass, and the coincidence is printed as the Schools section prints it — a name on a school, a great superintendent of the same name in the generation before, and the board's naming resolution named as the settling source — not as an asserted namesake.

John J. Young, and the desk's secretary: The classified pages of 1949 name the superintendent: John J. Young — the given name cut in the directory's text as reached, the identification with the John J. Young of the following books printed as the books support — with Ida L. Betts as the board's clerk. Young is superintendent in 1956, at 519 Clay in the alphabetical pages, and in 1963, planning a fourteen-classroom high school addition with the board in the 1963 yearbook's photograph and caption, his assistant superintendent Lowell Yaw beside him. Fourteen years at least, between the directories, at the desk Emmons had made the system's center. And Betts is the desk's own long server: named with the superintendent's office in the schools pages of 1921 — the same Ida L. Betts the 1937 yearbook shows as the superintendent's staff, "Secretary to the Board of Education" — and the board's clerk in 1949, twenty-eight years between books at the schools' paper desk, the exact counterpart, one building over, of the city clerk's long holders. John Young Middle School carries the superintendent's surname on the modern map; the naming record stands with Emmons's as a named gap, the board's resolutions the settling source.

The board's long members: Mishawaka's school board members are appointed, not elected — the modern board still fills its vacancies through the Common Council, as the council's 2022 appointment of a replacement member shows — and its long servers are appointed servants of consequence. Fred J. Hums is the board's treasurer in 1949, its president in 1956, and its president in 1963, standing in the yearbook's board photograph with the addition plans: fourteen years documented across three directories at the board's head, and Hums Elementary, opened 1970, carries the surname under the same naming-record caution as Emmons and Young. Around him the books give the board's working membership: Vivian Garlit, secretary in 1956 and treasurer in 1963 — a woman holding the board's fiscal offices in the 1950s, printed at that size; Charles H. Beutter, treasurer in 1956, his surname shared with a mayor of the next generation and the kinship unstated; Oscar A. Elbode, member in 1963, the councilman of 1949 and 1956 serving his second board; Eric H. Craven, secretary, and Dr. Robert Davis, member, in 1963; Melvin Hibschman and Louis Nicolini, members in 1956.

The modern line, and the gap before it: Between Young's last directory (1963) and 2019 the superintendency's holders are not named in the sources reached — a fifty-year gap in the corporation's top office, named here with its settling records: the corporation's own board minutes and the Tribune's appointment notices across those decades. The modern line is documented at its ends: Wayne Barker became superintendent in 2019, coming from a decade at Bluffton-Harrison, and served to June 2022, leaving for Northwest Allen County Schools, where the state's superintendents' association named him its District II Superintendent of the Year for 2023. His successor is a returning servant: Dr. Theodore Stevens, principal of LaSalle Elementary 2013–2015, assistant superintendent by 2016, gone to the superintendency of South Central Community Schools through the pandemic years, and returned in 2022 to lead the School City of Mishawaka — the board extending his contract in June 2025 through 30 June 2030, so that he is the superintendent as this record closes. The second corporation seated in this ground, Penn-Harris-Madison, keeps its own superintendents' line in the Schools section's frame; its holders were not dug and stand as a named gap, the corporation's published history the settling source.

Sources:

1. Miskodeed, Mishawaka High School yearbooks of 1924, 1930, 1937 and 1963 (Internet Archive) — the 1924 school history (Butts, 1848; Nuner and the alumni of 1910); Emmons in 1924, 1930 ("nine years") and 1937; the 1963 board photograph caption (Hums president, Craven secretary, Garlit treasurer, Davis and Elbode members; Superintendent John J. Young; Assistant Superintendent Lowell Yaw).
2. U.S. Bureau of Education, Educational Directory (1912) — Mishawaka: John F. Nuner, appointed August 1903, term expiring 31 July 1913, salary $2,100.
3. R. L. Polk & Co., directories of 1921, 1949, 1956 and 1963 — Emmons superintendent and Ida L. Betts board secretary (1921); Young superintendent and Betts board clerk (1949); Young superintendent, 519 Clay (1956); Young superintendent (1963); boards of education: Hums treasurer (1949), Hums president, Garlit secretary, Beutter treasurer, Hibschman and Nicolini members (1956), Hums president, Craven secretary, Garlit treasurer, Davis and Elbode members (1963).
4. South Bend Tribune, 22 April 2019, and First Student / Northwest Allen County Schools releases (2022) — Wayne Barker superintendent of the School City of Mishawaka 2019 to June 2022; IAPSS District II Superintendent of the Year for 2023.
5. Mishawaka High School, All Told (12 September 2022) — Dr. Theodore Stevens's course: LaSalle Elementary principal 2013–2015, assistant superintendent by 2016, South Central superintendency, return as superintendent for 2022–23; School City of Mishawaka board records (June 2025) — Stevens's contract extended through 30 June 2030.
6. The Schools section of this history — the school inventory (Emmons 1958, Hums 1970) and its naming-record caution, adopted here; the board vacancy filled by the Common Council (board announcement, 26 May 2022).