Bob Wolfe
Longtime Alma teacher and administrator steps away to spend more time with family
By Kevin Taylor
Alma Schools
Bob Wolfe never thought of himself as a middle school principal.
But life is full of oddities. And curveballs. And some luck, too.
Back in the early 1990s, Bob and his wife, Shawn, found their way to Crawford County. They never left.
“We had just gotten married and Shawn was an occupational therapist,” Wolfe explained. “I was flipping through a magazine and on the back were some (job) ads. One of them said, ‘The Fort Smith rehab hospital is hiring. They’ll pay you a signing bonus and move us down there.’
“We had to stay (at least) one year.”
Before she knew it, Shawn Wolfe was on an airplane for Fort Smith.
Bob Wolfe wasn’t far behind.
“She took the job and said, ‘Do you want to live in this little Duplex in Fort Smith, or there’s one in this little town called Alma.’ I’m a small-town Iowa boy, so let’s pick Alma.”
The Wolfes lived in a Duplex on Hwy. 71, north of the city limits, with the intent of returning to Iowa within a year.
Funny. Life, with its curveballs, sent the Wolfe family in another direction.
“I went back to school, got my (teaching) certification, and got a job teaching,” Wolfe said. “Thirty-three years later, here we are.”
Later this month, Wolfe, 57, will retire from teaching and with it hand over his Alma Middle School principal keys, a position he’s held for the past 11 years.
Alma administrator Jason Reeves said Wolfe taught him the human side of being an assistant principal during his two years at Alma Middle School. Such is with life, most of his lessons were simple common sense.
“Bob is very good at listening to teachers,” Reeves said. “Teachers are going to vent, and being able to listen to them and not take anything personally, and then try and help them the best you can. They (AMS) had so many things set up for success; they were just needing to get over the hump.”
Wolfe earned his bachelor's degree at the University of Iowa. After he and Shawn settled in Fort Smith, he enrolled in some Westark (UAFS) classes. “Then I went to the University of the Ozarks and took classes to get certified,” Wolfe said. “I got my (teaching) license.”
Wolfe grew up in New London, Ia., a dot on the map about halfway between Mt. Pleasant and Burlington, with a stop light and a couple of prairie skyscrapers - grain silos.
“I graduated from New London in a class of 38,” Wolfe said.
Wolfe, a science teacher by trade, went back to school to earn his administration wings. His first stop, however, wasn’t with Alma.
He signed on as an assistant principal at Waldron High School. The late Bill Mullins, who had become one of his early mentors at Alma High School, helped get him his first principal gig.
“That was a big, big move,” Wolfe said. “The biggest move was going from 15 years in the classroom to administration. Plus, we had lived in Alma for a long time, and I had kids in Alma. Andee was going to be a sophomore, so she could have been in my class had I stayed. Of course, they were very involved in stuff, and I was an hour away. (But) they (Waldron) were very flexible with me. Carter was playing little league soccer and they would say, ‘Hey, you go do that.’
“It was a long drive every day. Bill Mullins, was also working there as an assistant middle school principal, so they would let me stay there a couple of nights a week, so I didn’t have to drive home every day. It took me about 70 minutes to get there every day.”
A year or so later, former Alma Middle School principal Pat Whorton reached out to Wolfe. The next thing he knew, Wolfe was sitting alongside Alma Superintendent David Woolly.
“I had never thought about middle school before that; it had always been high school,” Wolfe said. “Pat Whorton called me and asked me about it, then Mr. Woolly called me. I came in and was her assistant for two years.
“She (Whorton) told me she was going to hang around four or five (years) and she lasted two and said, ‘Here, it’s yours.’ I’ve been a principal now for 11 years.”
After going back to school, Wolfe did his student teaching in Alma.
“I took some classes at the U of O (Clarksville), and they asked me where I wanted to student-teach. I told them I wanted to be in Alma,” he said. “I had a couple of great teachers there who helped me; Doug Ritchie and Jack Watson. Of course, Jerry Valentine (former Alma principal) was there, too.
“I knew at that time I wanted to work here. I was like, “I want to be a part of this; this is a great place.’ There were no job openings, so I went to Cedarville first for four years.”
After driving to Cedarville for four years, the aforementioned Bill Mullins reached out.
“I was very fortunate to get to come down to Alma and teach,” Wolfe said. “The principles I worked with there, Dr. (Mike) McSpadden, Pat Widders, Gregg Grant, and Pamm Treece, they were all great. Pat was a great influence on me, and Ronnie Newton was a great influence.
“There have been a ton of people who supported me.”