Bushong led MCSD through times of turmoil

To call Bob Bushong the all-time best bench captain the Muscogee County public school team ever had would be accurate, but inadequate. Bushong’s legacy is much more than that of a backup; it is that of a skilled crisis manager who three times stepped in to hold things together when tragedy or conflict threatened to shake them apart.

The “permanent interim” superintendent and 30-year veteran of the Muscogee County School District died Tuesday morning at a hospital near his home in coastal North Carolina after a long bout with cancer. A Celebration of Life service is scheduled for today at 2 p.m. at West Nash United Methodist Church in Wilson, N.C. He was 75.

Bushong wasn’t technically a career educator, but almost. After a stint in the Army, including service as a second lieutenant at Fort Benning, and a couple of years in business he became a teacher at his high school in Miami. He later became an administrator in Mobile, Ala., where he met and became friends with Braxton Nail, who would take over the Muscogee County superintendent’s job in 1973. A year later, Bushong came to Columbus as Nail’s second in command, a post in which he would serve for the next 15 years.

That phase of his career came to a sudden and tragic end when Nail committed suicide in 1989. At what must have been a time of intense personal anguish, Bushong moved into the superintendent’s office while the school system looked for a permanent replacement.

Yet those who knew him well say Bob Bushong’s short-term stretches of leading the school system were a lot more than just a matter of keeping the seat in the corner office warm: “He was a strong superintendent,” said former school board member Fife Whiteside, “probably the strongest we’ve ever had.” Another former superintendent and friend, Jim Buntin, credited Bushong with being the school district’s budget hawk: “He always did a good job taking care of the money. You need someone who will keep an eye on finances and that was Bob.”

Bushong would be called back to use that strength in service to the district again in 1994, when James Burns, appointed superintendent in 1992, was murdered in his home after just two years in office. And he would be drafted into the leadership spotlight yet again in 2002 when Guy Sims resigned the superintendent’s post after a conflict with the school board over the magnet program.

That a man who never formally held the title was honored as Superintendent Emeritus when he retired speaks volumes about the respect and gratitude with which the school board regarded Robert Bushong.

“I just like to think there are some people who have the talent for being able to step up to the plate when there are problems with little hope of glory,” Whiteside told writer Richard Hyatt. “I’ve always thought Bob Bushong was one of those people.”

This story was originally published September 8, 2011 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Bushong led MCSD through times of turmoil."