From Top To Bottom, Bennett Ok

Don’t cry for Bob Bennett. Your pity will drive him out of town.

He’s finished soul-searching and second-guessing the North Idaho College Board of Trustees’ sudden decision last June to relieve him of his college presidency. That’s the past, and Bob has his eyes on the future.

“It’s like a divorce,” he says. “Messy at first, and then it’s behind you.”

It’s not quite that easy. Everywhere he goes, people say things like “Poor soul” and “How are you holding up?” It’s hard to let go when no one will let you.

“I’m not discouraged or frustrated anymore. I just want to get it behind me,” he says. “But I’m not sure I can stay here and do that.”

For a man who’d harmonized with 10 years of NIC trustees, Bob says he never heard the wrong note he hit with his last board.

“I knew there was tension with some board members, but I didn’t know it was that strong,” he says.

Suddenly, he was asked to resign. He’d wanted to stay five more years and retire. But the board wanted him gone enough to buy out the remaining year on his contract. Bob was stunned.

“I was not expecting to be let go,” he says. “It hurt. It hurt a lot. I woke up every morning wondering what I could’ve done to change things.”

The board never explained its decision to the public or, he says, to him. A letter to newspapers from board chairwoman Jeanne Givens only hinted at the possible problems.

“Clear communication in writing, speaking, conveying public messages is a skill we’ve come to expect from those at the executive level. Any information withheld or omitted creates a vacuum,” she wrote.

Students protested. Two trustees quit. Bob’s secretary quit. Letters to the editor poured into newspapers condemning the board’s silence and its $142,000 settlement with Bob.

Three former trustees publicly praised Bob’s leadership and communication skills.

“I wanted to crawl under a rock,” he says. “I’d never been a part of anything like that, so personal. I really wanted to back away.”

Still, he speaks fondly of NIC and tries to say nothing that could influence the school’s search for his replacement.

He never planned a career in education. Business appealed to him, a leaning he picked up from his father, a pro baseball player who became a salesman.

Bob’s father urged him to get a teaching degree and change his career later. Bob idolized his father and became an English teacher.

He taught in Iowa, married, earned a master’s degree, had three children, worked as a principal and a superintendent, earned his doctorate and formed firm opinions about the educational system.

“We’re so enamored with being large that we forget the individual,” he says. “I’m convinced we have to rethink the program at the college level so people have the feeling that being at school is important.”

His doctoral degree opened college administration to him. He moved from Iowa to Michigan to Coeur d’Alene. Every change energized him.

He took over NIC in 1987 figuring he’d stay five to seven years - the length of time research shows college presidents are effective.

Coeur d’Alene embraced this hearty, big-smiling man and the feeling was mutual. He spruced up the campus and invited the community to the college through theater and business programs. People marveled at his rapport with legislators.

Bob couldn’t avoid controversy and didn’t expect to. A motherlode of emotional issues hit him, from poorly ventilated buildings that teachers blamed for sickening them to program mergers to the start of a campus club for gays.

Every issue won him as many new supporters as detractors.

He sailed relatively smoothly for about seven years and might have left if his children hadn’t moved to town.

About that time, nebulous gripes around campus began to accumulate and gather strength. He was autocratic. His philosophy that education is a business and students are consumers was misguided. He was sexist.

One teacher pointed out to the board how Bob had favored men for top jobs and had belittled women for health problems they blamed on the “sick” Hedlund Vocational Building.

“That one offended me,” he says. “I asked questions about equality in sports, encouraged forums on women’s rights, insisted that the inferior women’s locker rooms in the gym get taken care of.

“It didn’t bother me to say to a woman what was important.”

The gripes gathered steam and eventually blew him off his feet, which shouldn’t have surprised him, he says.

“The faculty is very bright, articulate. It’s their nature to question every decision. Maybe it was time for a change,” he says.

Bob admits he needed change, but it took him months to appreciate it after it came.

“A man is defined by his work,” he says. “The hardest thing in the world for me was filling out a form that asked where I worked. I didn’t know what to put down. That’s a very difficult thing for me to work through.”

He’s applied for college jobs. At 60, his work experience is impressive. When he interviewed for the NIC position 11 years ago, Bob was a finalist for jobs at five schools. This time around, he’s made the finalist list for one job that went to someone else.

“I’m convinced age is a factor,” he says.

He sold his house, horses and house pets and moved with his wife of 39 years, Donna, into a Coeur d’Alene condominium. The move took his mind off NIC.

Then, he hit the weights and treadmill at the athletic club. The exercise has left him trim, energetic and confident.

“It gave me the chance to focus on something new,” he says.

He began to read again, biographies of Lincoln and Jefferson and details of the Lewis and Clark expedition. He walked with Donna and played with his grandchildren. And he thought.

He decided to apply for jobs through April, then quit if nothing seems hopeful. He’s financially secure. It’s work’s other purpose he needs.

“It’s stimulating,” he says. “I’m not sure I can continue this lifestyle without becoming frustrated.”

If work doesn’t come through, Bob says he and Donna might pack up and start life over, somewhere where he has no baggage. The idea ignites a sparkle in his eyes.

“I’m not discouraged or frustrated anymore about this whole thing,” he says. “I want to get it behind me. It’s over. Let’s get on with life.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo