Photo courtesy of Whit McGhee.
0714 Jamie Blair
Jamie Blair retired this year after 14 years as Vestavia Hills City Schools Superintendent.
If you had asked Jamie Blair forty years ago what he would do as a career, he wouldn’t have told you that he’d be here.
“I was going to be a farmer or work for the power company. My granddad was a farmer and my dad worked for the power company, and they were my heroes,” he said.
But at 58, Blair has just finished a 14-year run as Vestavia Hills’ superintendent during one of the largest expansions in the system’s history.
“My mom had always told me that I would be a teacher one day,” he said. “And as usual, moms are always right.”
Blair’s journey into education began when he was a teenager on the plains of Andalusia, helping his father each summer at the local power company by shovel-digging utility pole holes or dragging new power lines through sweltering snake-infested swamps.
“My dad would say, ‘Are you sure you want to do this your whole life? College is out there, you know.’”
He went on to college after high school, initially drawn to business, until one day a friend told him about studying elementary education. That’s when everything seemed to fall into place for Blair.
“I was always drawn to helping kids, even as a teenager when I would take my little brother around town with me,” Blair said. “Someone once told my mom, ‘Every time I see Jamie, he’s got his little brother with him.’ That’s what got me into education. I can’t think of anything more worthwhile than preparing kids to be successful adults.”
After earning his undergraduate degree from Troy University, Blair began teaching — moving from Andalusia to Opelika to Muscle Shoals, and eventually serving for several years as superintendent in Cullman.
Then one day, the phone rang.
“A Vestavia Hills board member called and told me that they’d like for me to apply to be superintendent,” he said. “I thought I could never get a job in Vestavia, but I’ve spent most of my career here, and it’s gone by so quick.”
The accomplishments reached during Blair’s tenure can be seen everywhere: Over the past 14 years Vestavia Hills has added two schools and 2,300 additional students to its rolls, completed renovations and building projects, earned unitary desegregation status and passed a renewal of the city’s school tax.
For Blair, however, the biggest rewards have come through the successes of the students and with whom the people he’s worked.
“I made a point at every graduation for 14 years to look each student in the eye as they came down the aisle,” he said. “I felt that every one of them was my responsibility, and it was with great pride that I watched them go out to whatever endeavors they were headed for.
“That pride in our kids leads to pride in the principals and administrators and teachers and staff members who help them accomplish those things. That’s what keeps me going. That’s what I’ll miss the most,” he said.
Blair’s career as an educator isn’t quite over yet, though; he’ll serve for the next year as an advisor to new Vestavia Hills superintendent Sheila Phillips, all the while preparing with his wife, Rita, to move to their new 275-acre farm in the rolling Tuscaloosa countryside.
“Now I’m going to be doing what I thought I’d be doing all along,” he said.
-Whit McGhee is Vestavia Hills City Schools’ communications and public relations specialist.
