This article was written Jerry Weakley (Baker 1970). We encourage comments which you can do by going to the comments box below each article.
Born in Warrenton, Georgia, on the 17th of August 1947, Oliver Alvin Ruff began his life inauspiciously as a son of cotton-farming sharecroppers. His father was Loyless Lee (1917-2000). Loyless was the son of Robert Lee (1878-1948) and Maggie Beall Lee (1891-1978). Oliver’s mother, Lollie Mae Ruff, was born in 1926 and passed away in 2001. She was the daughter of Robert Ruff (1889-1957) and Minnie M. Johnson Ruff (1881-1957). As Oliver’s life unfolded his other relatives and family included: A brother, Loyless Lee Jr. (same name as father) and a sister, Elmer Jean Lee Ruff. He has been married to Emma Lee Sudduth Ruff since 1976 and together they have a daughter, Vonyea Nicole Ruff Powell and her husband, Martin C. Powell. Their child is Ayden Oliver Powell. In addition, Oliver has a daughter from a previous relationship two years prior to his marriage, Olivia Brothers. She has two children, Chase and Kennedy Brothers. Through DNA sampling, he discovered in 2013, that Olivia was his daughter.
Oliver’s parents divorced when he was still quite young. Consequently, his mother, Lollie Mae Lee Ruff, decided that her family’s name would remain as Oliver’s given name. According to the family’s legacy, Oliver’s name was derived from his great-great grandfather. Looking back at the family’s history and heritage is an important part of previous and on-going family reunions.
When Oliver was still a young boy, Lollie had to make the hard decision to leave him and his sister, Jean, behind in Warrenton with his grandmother and other family members. This became necessary so as to allow her to head north as so many African Americans were doing prior to and through that time period to secure a more promising future for them. Evanston, Illinois, was the city to which she migrated. There she was eventually able to secure as many as three simultaneous domestic jobs that would allow her to accumulate enough resources to bring her son and daughter back to her side.
Education would later become the central point of Oliver’s career, and life was certainly not a given in his early years. As a result of the very actively enforced Jim Crow Laws in the South, Oliver was forced to attend the all-black school in Warrenton. He had to walk a mile and a half twice each day to school and back to his grandmother’s residence.
Jim Crow laws were a collection of state and local statutes that legalized and popularized racial segregation and were named after a Black minstrel show character. These laws existed from the Post-Civil-War era until 1968 and were meant to marginalize African Americans by denying them the right to vote, hold jobs, get an education, use public transportation, prevent entrance into certain stores and restaurants and restrict access to any of a number of additional opportunities. As a result of these laws, Oliver and countless other black students across the country were forced each day to pass directly by an all-white school that was in Oliver’s case a half mile closer to his home than the school he had to attend.
Should the cotton fields surrounding Warrenton burst into white-matured boles either prior to or following summer’s school break, Oliver, along with children of countless sharecroppers, would need to leave the single classroom school and his schoolwork behind to attend to those fields picking cotton to help the family earn a meager subsistence income upon which to survive.
Those fields of cotton in Georgia were left behind for good in 1957, when at the age of ten, Lollie was finally able to move Oliver and his sister to be reunited with her in Evanston. While some racial inequities and educational opportunities were greatly improved by the move, other inequalities remained and continued well into his and his family’s later years of life.
In Evanston, Oliver initially attended Foster Elementary School. He later attended Evanston Township High School and graduated there with the class of 1966. In high school, he was an active member of the football, basketball, track and lacrosse teams. Also, while in high school, he developed a desire and enjoyed opportunities of working with younger students as a recreational assistant and in other leadership positions.
As a career choice was slowly coming into focus, Oliver determined that he definitely wanted to attend college. And, as a search for an institution to attend progressed, he further decided that he wanted to study education with an intent of becoming a teacher. It was at this time during his senior year of high school, that he met and was recruited to leave Evanston to attend Baker University by its’ admissions director, Ray Terrell. Baker University, was and remains a liberal arts college located in a small farming community of Baldwin City, Kansas.
Initially, Olivers’ mother was not at all supportive with his desire to leave Evanston and she tried to convince him to stay much nearer to her and their home. Eventually, however, she was persuaded and in fact allowed her son to travel nearly 600 miles away to school. She concluded that Baker, would potentially be as safe and as welcoming an environment for her son that could be found. Baker University was founded in 1858 and was the oldest four-year college of higher education in the state of Kansas. Its origination and continued affiliation is with the Methodist Church.
Oliver received a grant-in-aid for financial assistance and was a four-year member of the Baker Wildcat football team, which made his decision to attend Baker that much easier.
At Baker, in addition to playing football, Oliver was also active on campus as a member of the Zeta Chi Fraternity, as vice president of his junior class, and in holding a campus work-study job. He was a popular student and well-known and well-liked by his fellow classmates and professors of classes in which he enrolled. In fact, he was so well-thought of that he was able to earn additional money for his education and recreational spending as members of the faculty would often call on him to baby-sit their children. An additional testament to his recognition and popularity came in his final year on campus when his fellow classmates voted him the Outstanding Senior Male.
During his senior year at Baker and near the height of the Vietnam war, the first military draft lottery since 1942 was held and broadcast live on television. Oliver along with hundreds of thousands of other young men across the country nervously watched the drawing and then were forced to play a wait-and-see game on whether or not their birthdates, which determined their relative draft positions, would be called to fulfill the military’s draft requirement. As his birth year was further down the list than others required to fill the initial year’s draft requirement, he was not immediately drafted for duty but would be allowed to at least begin his chosen occupation in education. His lottery number was higher than the number selected for that draft.
Oliver graduated from Baker with his class in 1970 with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Elementary Education. Shortly thereafter, he interviewed for and was hired as a 3rd-4thgrade teacher at Switzer Elementary School in the Kansas City Missouri Public School District. There he was given additional responsibilities and worked in the new Insight Program which was designed to better address the educational needs of its underserved student population in the inner-city. In what little spare time he had, he prioritized the opportunity to attend graduate school at UMKC, to begin pursuit of a master’s degree.
Shortly following completion of his first year of teaching in Kansas City, his draft status which now included his number came up and he was notified that he would be drafted, and to return home and prepare for military induction. He immediately left Kansas City and returned to Evanston for the required entrance to military duty. However, due to his number actually exceeding the prescribed draft requirement at that time by two. As a result, he did not have to report. In his words, “it was a discouraging reprieve.” Since the induction never occurred, Oliver elected to remain in Evanston to be closer to his mother.
Oliver immediately began the search for a job in the Evanston area. Soon after, he was hired as a substitute teacher in 1971 with his former school district #65, in Evanston. Within a period of time, a fulltime position became available, and he was elevated to that more desirable position. In this role, he had responsibilities scattered across teaching in the grades from kindergarten through eighth grade. These were defining moments for him as he was in a relatively short time frame able to fully grasp and gain critical experience with the differing special individualized needs and challenges presented by students throughout virtually all their years of elementary into middle school education and beyond.
During these years in this teaching assignment, Oliver also began planning formal career preparation for future opportunities not only as a teacher but in educational administration degree acquisition. He was accepted into a master’s degree program at National College of Education located in Evanston, which is now an advanced degree granting school under the title of National Lewis University of Chicago. There he was awarded a M.S. Degree in Educational Administration and Supervision in 1976. That was the same year that he married Emma.
In addition to taking on the task of advancing his own education, Oliver spent numerous hours of his “off-duty” time creating and implementing the first city-wide tutoring program at Mount Zion Church. The program was named “Get in the Know Tutoring Program” and operated from the late 1970’s to the mid 1980’s. This program was acclaimed throughout the city for having been a tremendous success and having been instrumental in bringing educational opportunities to a large segment of the area’s population. Many adults still acknowledge the positive impact on their lives and careers that this program brought about.
Just prior to the successful completion of his masters, Oliver’s professional experience was set to expand as he accepted a position with his former junior high school as a Building Assistant for Student Affairs, or an uncertified Assistant Principal. Upon the completion of his master’s degree, he became the official assistant principal. He also worked a second job in the evening as an office supervisor for an adult education teacher program. The major portion of his responsibilities was to coordinate and assist with a federal program for adults who had not completed high school. This program was called the Comprehensive Employment Training Act (CETA) and was housed in the Evanston Township High School facility.
His first opportunity at higher levels of school building administration came just a year later as he continued with the Evanston School District #65, as assistant principal. There, over the course of the next ten years, he managed student activities and busing, structured and monitored the lunch program and handled other responsibilities as directed by the principal.
This position allowed him to immerse himself in the administrative side of education at the high school level. However, it left him still desiring to become more involved in the actual day to day development and delivery of educational programs, curriculum design and supervision of school personnel.
In 1988 he interviewed for a position back in the area in which his teaching career had begun. Shortly after, he was named principal of Pitcher Elementary School in the Kansas City Missouri Public School District. There he was responsible for designing and creating school curriculum, managing the budgets for architectural design, construction of school improvements, and supervision of teachers and staff. He additionally supervised the construction and programmatic preparation for the new school building, The Pitcher Classical Greek Elementary School.
This position afforded Oliver both the breadth and depth of involvement with the entirety of a school’s administration and staffing organization. However, the distance from Kansas City to his wife, Emma, and their daughter, Vonyea, who had elected to remain in Evanston for Emma’s work (36 successful years in sales auditing with Saks 5th Ave.) and for Vonyea’s schooling, academics, social activities and friends that she didn’t want to leave, placed considerable stress on maintenance of the family’s ties and commitments. He was constantly finding the need to commute back and forth from Kansas City to Evanston to attend activities for Vonyea as well as to participate in her overall parenting which caused physical, emotional and financial strains and drains on the family.
As a result, Oliver once again felt the need to return to Evanston after just a year in Kansas City. Fortunately, he was able to quickly secure a position that made the transition more fluid. In 1989 he was hired as a consultant in the professional development program at the Northeastern Illinois University of Chicago. In this position he coordinated, scheduled and expedited workshops for teachers throughout the Chicago Public School District. Having secured a position so quickly allowed him to also begin the search that would eventually return him to his real passion, that of an in-school administrator.
His next opportunity in that specific regard would be one of the most challenging in his entire career. In 1991 he was named assistant principal at the McCorkle Elementary School in the Chicago Public School System. McCorkle was a south-side Chicago school located across the street from a large public housing development that was known for being associated with gang activity, drugs and crime. Education in an environment such as this is not only difficult, but nearly impossible to provide a feasible and relevant education for those students who earnestly wanted to be there for learning and to hopefully improve their lives.
McCorkle was seriously lacking in budgetary funding which led to a lack of basic educational supplies, technology, and even in maintenance of its physical plant. At times the building had holes in the roof that due to a lack of funding went unrepaired for periods of time. In the case of a rain storm, plastic barrels were occasionally placed by necessity under leaks coming from the roof throughout the school in some classrooms and hallways. Computers used in the classrooms and at the public housing facilities were in some cases first or second generation at a time when technology had moved well beyond those rudimentary earlier machines. (Editor’s Note: I visited Oliver at McCorkle in the early 1990’s and personally witnessed and experienced the described conditions above).
But, even in spite of these most difficult issues at McCorkle, Oliver was able to successfully coordinate student activities, implement rules and policies along with over-sight of the enforcement of discipline and security. He additionally managed outside security personnel and acted as the liaison between the principal, parents, teachers and students on grievances, behavioral and similar critical issues.
In 1995 Oliver was given the opportunity to once again bring the same strong leadership skills he had demonstrated at McCorkle to another school in the Chicago Public School District which was similar in many ways to McCorkle as he was named principal of the Daniel Hale Williams Elementary School. There he was given full responsibility for increasing the school’s student achievement at the same time as being the full-time on-sight overseer of the buildings’ new construction, ongoing renovations, and all curricular and professional successes.
Having successfully handled the myriad positions and responsibilities that were assumed by him in education throughout his career to this point, Oliver was next hired in 1997 into the Central office of the Chicago Public School District where he was assigned to assist and essentially “help” other school administrators throughout the entirety of the Chicago School District successfully address and resolve the limitless issues they faced in developing and delivering educational relevance for their students. Where necessary, he was asked to step into individual schools to assist building principals with any number of crucial tasks and administrative responsibilities. This position had him commuting great distances from his home in Evanston on a daily basis. As a result, after several years, he decided it was time to look for a position that would allow him to be in the car commuting far less time requirement.
As a result of that desire, in 1999, he was offered a unique opportunity in an unsuspected educational journey. Having applied and interviewed, Oliver was hired as an associate principal of the Ninth Grade Center at Waukegan High School, which was nearer to his home. At the Ninth Grade Center, he administered over one thousand students and a hundred plus staff members. Once again, due to budget restraints, he had no assistant principal under his supervision. Drawing upon his expansive knowledge and experience in both curriculum design and delivery, he was tasked to construct a new program and oversee the day-to-day operations of a transitional program for freshmen coming from middle school into high school. After three highly successful years at the Ninth Grade Center, the superintendent requested that he assume the principalship of the lowest performing school in Waukegan, where he would be replacing the current principal. Oliver had no other alternative, than to say yes, but he did so somewhat reluctantly. As a result, he became the principal of the Carmen-Buckner Elementary School in Waukegan.
During the time he was working in Chicago, Oliver had begun course work toward a doctoral degree at Roosevelt University, a private university with campuses in Chicago and Schaumburg, IL. Over the course of the next few years, he successfully completed all of the course work in the program. However, due to numerous and on-going work-related responsibilities, volunteer activities, family health issues as well as the beginning of significant health issues of his own, he was never able to provide the time necessary for completing the dissertation required for receiving the Doctoral degree. In effect, he had prioritized care taking responsibilities of his mother over completing his degree.
As mentioned above, adding significantly to the desire to remain as close as possible to Evanston at this time was his mother’s seriously declining health issues. It was determined that she suffered from heart disease and was becoming increasingly in need of having frequent visits to doctors and for dialysis. Oliver dutifully became Lollie’s main care-giver and spent much time in attempting to provide transportation, meeting with physicians and trying as much as he could to provide care and comfort for his mother. Unfortunately, the treatments she received were unable to mitigate any substantive improvement in her condition and she passed away from this disease in 2001.
Upon Oliver’s arrival at Carmen-Buckner, he found that he would immediately be responsible for dealing with 19 serious grievances which had been levied against the school by the Teachers’ Union during the prior administration’s tenure. Never one to back away from a challenge, Oliver worked diligently to successfully address each of the grievances that had been presented to him at the very outset of his administration. In a short time period, he was able to return the school to a good standing with the union and educationally.
And, if dealing with the grievances wasn’t a serious enough drain on his time and physical well-being, he also was immediately tasked with elevating the school’s academic achievement ranking which at the time of his arrival was the lowest in the district. Through his leadership and the combined and determined efforts of his administrative team, the teaching staff, parents and students, Oliver was able to promote the critical leadership in raising the rankings of Carman-Buckner to the school achieving the greatest academic progress of all the schools in the district. In just three short years, the school was removed from the district’s Academic Probation list!
In Oliver’s six years total in Waukegan and three years at Carman-Buckner Elementary School, he approached the beginning of his 36th year in education. He began to consider retirement. The drain on his physical, mental and emotional well-being related to his six years in Waukegan had taken a collective toll on his health, and he felt the time was more than likely right to move on to the next phase of life in which he could spend more quality time with family and for volunteer activities which had always been a mainstay in his life. Overall, he felt that he had successfully achieved the predominant goals he had established and worked toward since his first days in the profession in Kansas City, MO. Over the course of his career, his actions and decisions had been guided by a motto he had created that succinctly expressed the over-arching goals of his own career as well as for those students and institutions which he served: “High Expectations, No Exceptions, No Excuses!” There can be little doubt that those lofty goals had indeed been achieved! Thereupon, his retirement was set for the conclusion of the 2005 school year. However, the anticipation of his forthcoming retirement became somewhat more celebratory than expected.
As he continued the process of formally disengaging from his final positions in Waukegan, Oliver was surprised to learn that no fewer than four separate retirement parties were being planned and were thrown in his honor. Administrative colleagues, teachers, students and parents of students from virtually every step of his teaching and administrative career, friends and family came from near and far to attend these events to pay homage to Oliver Ruff. In each case those in attendance all desired to bestow well-deserved honor on this man whose love, respect and tireless efforts were in no small way responsible for their personal, professional and academic success. It was quite evident at those events, and ever since, the magnitude of appreciation and respect the variety of communities held for his desire and ability to form deep bonds and relationships with the students, colleagues and communities he served.
During the period following his retirement, he experienced multiple health challenges, including both Prostate Cancer and two knee replacements. But, following just a short rest and period of revitalization after treatments for these serious health issues that Oliver was influenced out of retirement the very next year in 2006. And, over the course of the next 12 years, he would find himself serving in numerous schools as a substitute principal and in mentoring roles for school administrators in districts such as Skokie, Des Plaines, Waukegan and Palatine among others. He also took on the principalship of an Alternative School for students who had behavioral and an assortment of other reasons for having been removed from the traditional school they had previously attended. And somehow, among all of these engagements, he still found time to occasionally teach selective education courses at Northwestern University, through the OLLI Program (Osher Lifelong Learning Institute). This was strictly voluntary. The districts where he subbed for principals however, came with compensation. The good news for Oliver was that each of these compensated assignments, or combination of assignments, could last for no more than a collective 100 days in any given year, due to requirements established in his retirement plan by the state of Illinois.
The breaks afforded by the 100-day limit in actual paid-employment then allowed Oliver the time and availability to put concerted effort into several of his own activities and those of the volunteer organizations and committees which he supported. It also gave him additional opportunities to represent opinions on issues of importance to community and organizational leaders, not only for himself, but on behalf of fellow citizens in his own community and for organizations with which he was involved.
One such issue that became glaringly apparent to him at the time of his mother’s passing was “end-of-life-choices” and associated issues. Oliver had come to understand through his mother’s medical struggles just how severely lacking was community-wide information and communication with respect to options in care and availability of aid. This topic remains an important one to him to this day. And, he continues to hold ongoing meetings with those who can champion the necessary refinements to and changes in current law, as they apply to the interconnected details related to end-of life options. This is a statewide venture that he is integrally involved with.
In addition to this specific volunteerism, he is involved in numerous other organizations. Listed below are a number of the additional volunteer activities/groups/associations and committees with which Oliver has also played an energetic and hands-on role for much of his life:
The Organization for Positive Action and Leadership
The Osher Lifetime Learning Institute at Northwestern University
Compassion and Choices Hospice Committee
Men of Color Circle
Shorefront Archives for Black Citizenry
Reparations Sub-Committee on Education
Fleetwood Jourdain Seniors Group
The following groups/committees that he co-founded include:
Community Alliance for Better Government
Championing Racial Equity Work in Evanston School District 65
The Justin Wynn Scholarship
The Warren “Billy” Cherry Scholarship
OAR (Oliver A. Ruff) Educational and Mentoring Scholarship
As witnessed by the inclusion of the last three scholarship funds listed above, Oliver continues to be extremely involved with issues related to educational scholarships and the lives of youngsters. His ongoing concern is that of the glaring lack of opportunity for some to be able to afford an education that can and will in every way improve their lives. Much of his time and talents continue to this day to be directed toward the administration and funding of a scholarship fund that was first created in his honor at the time of his retirement in 2005: The Oliver A. Ruff Education and Mentoring Scholarship (OAR). Now in its 18th year since it was created. This scholarship has delivered significant scholarship monies to some 170 students with 11 such awards having been made in fiscal years 2023 and 9 in 2024.
On July 29th, 2024, the entire city of Evanston was invited to come together to offer one more tangible piece of recognition and manifestation of the admiration and respect that the community has for Oliver A. Ruff. The street upon which Oliver and his family have resided for nearly a half century was named in his honor. The newly renamed street will thus serve as a permanent reminder of the power of education and the difference a single person can make in the lives of many. Oliver’s vision, fortitude, and willingness to be both collaborative, and cooperative, will now forever be displayed and recognized by this most meaningful honor.
A crowd estimated in excess of 400 persons that included community members, elected officials, educators, family, clergy and more gathered on Dobson St. in South Evanston to honor this man whose life had been dedicated to education in all its permutations. Both a former and current mayor of Evanston were present along with a former boss of Oliver’s from Kansas City who went on to become the Area Superintendent of the Kansas City Missouri Public School District. Hundreds sat along the street and poured onto the sidewalks as speakers made their way to a podium to herald his tremendous impact on the Evanston community and beyond.
Evanston’s current Mayor, Daniel Biss, stated that Oliver represents the “best of Evanston.” He relayed how Oliver comes to him to discuss city issues and through conversation he often moves Biss’ position on topics. He said that Oliver ensures that the mayor sees and considers important issues from a different point of view and fills him with empathy for a perspective he had not previously considered.
Robert Pressoir, OAR’s president said Mr. Ruff provides invaluable contributions to students who otherwise would not be able to pursue higher educational opportunities. He said Ruff’s leadership has transformed students’ dreams into reality. The fact that Robert Pressoir is one is Oliver’s former students in middle school made his remarks that much more appreciated and significant.
Other speakers spoke of the hope that this street will continue to inspire future generations to emulate Oliver Ruff’s values and dedication and thanked him for his immeasurable contributions. Others spoke of him as being a beacon of light that continues to guide all members of their community.
It was said that Oliver truly lives by his motto “High Expectations; No Exceptions; No Excuses.” And while he is proud of his accomplishments and is certainly appreciative of the street renaming ceremony, he acknowledges that his work is not yet complete.
“For almost 80 years, I have witnessed progress, but there is much yet to be achieved,” Oliver said. “Working together and communicating harmoniously, not necessarily in agreement, we can work together to move forward for a better tomorrow.” In his closing remarks, he encouraged others to live their lives in such a way as to appreciate that it was not lived in vain.
For those desiring more information on or desiring to make a donation to the Oliver A. Ruff Scholarship please go the website of the fund listed below:
All donations will receive a tax-exempt letter for use in tax preparation.
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