
DATE: Monday, September 8, 1997             TAG: 9709080059

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B2   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: Correspondent Jane Harper researched and wrote this report. 

                                            LENGTH:   52 lines

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO...C. FRED BATEMAN, FORMER CHESAPEAKE SUPERINTENDENT?

C. Fred Bateman served as superintendent of Chesapeake schools from 1980 to 1995, leading the school district during a time of enormous growth.

C. Fred Bateman didn't even know where Chesapeake was when he was invited to come to the city in 1976 to serve as assistant superintendent for finance.

``I had to look on a map to see where it was,'' he recalled last week with a chuckle. ``I didn't realize until then that I had been going through Chesapeake all that time to get to Nags Head.''

But Bateman, 57, quickly learned to love the city. ``It was definitely the best move I ever made. And we plan to stay here.''

In the 15 years Bateman led Chesapeake schools, other cities in Hampton Roads employed as many as five or six superintendents.

``It didn't have anything to do with me. It was just the nature of this community. I was only the eighth superintendent here since the Civil War.''

Today, he works at Old Dominion University and serves as director of the Principals' Center of Hampton Roads, a consortium of about 300 principals from the area.

He also teaches classes in education law and education finance.

``I had not planned to retire quite that early, but the opportunity was too good to pass up,'' Bateman said. ``I had always wanted to work at a university when I left.''

Bateman also serves as chairman of Chesapeake General Hospital Foundation's board of directors.

Now that his evenings are no longer filled with PTA meetings and civic group gatherings, Bateman and his wife, Joan, like to spend more time visiting their two children and three grandchildren.

Education seems to run in the family. Their son is a professor at Shippensburg University in Shippensburg, Pa., and their daughter is a first-grade teacher in Blacksburg.

``I'm real proud they went into education,'' Bateman said. ``It gives us a lot to talk about.

``Neither one of them wants to be a superintendent, however.'' MEMO: Whatever Happened To. . . appears every Monday, and we welcome

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Harper. ILLUSTRATION: File photo/The Virginian-Pilot

C. Fred Bateman, who spent 15 years as superintendent of

Chesapeake's schools, now works at Old Dominion University. ``I

had not planned to retire quite that early, but the opportunity was

too good to pass up,'' he said.