The first time I met Dave Pray he was the elementary school principal in Clinton. He was new at his job but had been a teacher there prior to his promotion. I was a couple of years into my tenure in Addison.
We were at a workshop hosted by the Lenawee County Intermediate School District. We each brought a teacher with us. I don’t recall the two teachers, but the four of us worked together all day, and I knew I had met a special man. We worked together at times over my tenure in Addison, but I got to know him better when we became school superintendents.
Again, I landed my job in Britton before he was promoted in Clinton. It wasn’t based upon talent but rather opportunity. We shared our respective duties for several years. Both Clinton and Britton benefited from Schools of Choice when it became the law of the land in Michigan. Dozens, and eventually hundreds, of students came our way from neighboring districts. We were up and coming, providing a hometown atmosphere that parents wanted for their children. We shared a border with a larger school district. Each time the larger school experienced a controversy another half dozen students would head our way.
Newly appointed school superintendents in Lenawee County had a history of becoming the leader of the Lenawee County Superintendents’ Association. You didn’t get the job your first year, but you didn’t have to wait long. My turn popped up my second or third year. At that time the position was a figurehead. You sat at the head of the table and ran the meetings. I didn’t like that approach so when I was elected, I decided I’d become more active in planning our meetings. In the past the ISD Superintendent set the tone for us.
If I was going to be the leader, I was going to set the tone. After all, it was the Superintendent’s meeting, not the ISD’s. I nicknamed myself The Czar and had a successful reign. When David became our leader, he referred to himself as King David. We both thought it was important to have fun while we worked.
I have a lot of stories about King David. Here’s my favorite.
Most of the Lenawee County Superintendents attended the fall superintendent’s conference in Traverse City. It was held in late September and somewhere along the line, Jim, the superintendent from Adrian Madison, figured out we could save money for our districts if four of us shared a condo rather than rent four separate hotel rooms. One year, Jim, King David, Brad from Deerfield and I shared such a space. Four others shared the condo next door.
Jim and Dave shared one bedroom while Brad and I shared the second. There was a large common space that featured a full kitchen and living area with a fireplace. It was very nice.
We each went our separate ways during the day but returned to the condo at night. Sometimes we had a beer before retiring and other times we went straight to bed. The first morning of our first shared condo, Jim was missing when we woke up. King David made a pot of coffee for us while he, Brad, and I speculated where Jim might have gone. We didn’t know him to be a morning jogger or walker, but he was definitely gone.
About halfway through our first cup of coffee Jim appeared. He was dressed in the same pajama pants he wore the night before. When we asked him where he had been he pointed at King David and said, “You snore!”
“Yes, I know.”
“Well, you snored so loudly that I came out here to sleep on the couch, but I could still hear you, so I went next door and slept on the couch in the other condo.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Dave, my brother snores loudly too. He went to a sleep clinic, went through a test, and they told him that he has sleep apnea.”
“I’ve had the test and I have sleep apnea.”
“After his test, my brother was fitted for a CPAP machine. He wears the mask every night and he doesn’t snore anymore.”
“I was fitted, and I have a machine.”
“Why didn’t you bring it?”
“I did.”
“Where is it?”
“It’s in the closet.”
“Why didn’t you wear it?”
“I didn’t want to scare you.”
That’s Dave. Always thinking of others.
On November 21, 2005, during a game against the Nashville Predators, Detroit Red Wings defenseman Jiri Fischer suffered a heart attack. It happened shortly after the game began. Fischer collapsed on the players’ bench and was quickly attended to by medical staff. Fortunately, he survived.
Not long afterwards, it may have been that same winter, David suffered a heart attack while playing hockey at the University of Michigan. He played there most Sunday evenings. Like Jiri Fischer, medical staff at the rink saved his life. He was in the right place to suffer such an attack. If he was anywhere else, he may not have survived.
He received a personal cardiac defibrillator which was set up to jump start his heart if it fell out of rhythm. He couldn’t drive for several months, so I picked him up in Clinton so he could attend our superintendent meetings in Adrian. We talked about life and school on those drives, and we learned a bit more about one another. He was up for anything. He mowed the school’s lawn in the summer and swept the basketball court between games. He did what he felt needed to be done and didn’t think twice about it.
He was the first one at school in the morning, and often, the last to leave. He didn’t shy from making the hard calls even if the calls were controversial. He did what he thought was in the best interest of his students. Period.
What I didn’t know about him was his habit of scheduling meetings at unusual times. He’d start at 1:02 not 1:00. I knew another guy, Steve, who was my two sons golf coach. He’d schedule the bus to leave at 8:18 not 8:00 or 8:30. He thought the boys would remember the unusual times because they sounded like tee times, not a bus schedule. It worked for him.
I suspect King David had a similar rationale. He took the road not traveled when he scheduled his meetings. I didn’t know this until I read of his death. He passed a couple of days ago. There was a funeral home visitation yesterday from 4:04 to 8:08. There’s a second visitation in the Clinton Schools High School gym today from 1:01 to 3:03. A celebration of life will begin at the school at 3:30.
It’s been several years since I last saw Dave. We were attending a dinner at the Lenawee County Intermediate School District. I was making a presentation, and he was in the audience. As we shook hands, he said what he had said dozens of times over our prior encounters. “I’m glad you had a chance to see me.”
Me too.