Driving down S Brooksville Avenue 16 years ago, thinking about how beautiful some of those old houses could be if they were spruced up, I saw one that had been and was — beautiful, that is.
And it had a "for sale'' sign out front.
The owners turned out to be Jim and Louise Malcolm. As I toured the house that my wife and I would eventually buy, the Malcolms (Jim, mostly) talked about how they had fallen for Brooksville on a visit and moved down from Rhode Island. While showing me "before'' pictures of a hopelessly trashed home, he took me through every step of its renovation.
I can't, of course, remember everything else Malcolm went on to talk about that day, partly because he covered a dizzying variety of topics.
I think he mentioned his candidacy for the School Board and his frustration, as city planner, that Brooksville wasn't taking advantage of its historic beauty.
I'm quite sure he utilized his trademark rhetorical flourish — asking his own questions before answering them — which has saved a generation of reporters the trouble of setting up his quotes.
And I definitely remember what I thought when I walked out the door :
"Wow! Smart guy.''
In the past 16 years — during his stint as Brooksville city manager and four terms on the School Board — I've never thought otherwise.
With Malcolm, 65, retiring from the board this year and his replacement, James Yant, set to be sworn in on Tuesday, the time seems right to look back on how different our schools might be if Malcolm hadn't squeezed by Anna Calleri by two votes in the 1992 Democratic primary.
Let's review some of what the district didn't offer then but — partly because of Malcolm's advocacy — does now.
Magnet schools, starting with the opening of Chocachatti Elementary in 1999; a long-talked-about vocational school, Nature Coast Technical High; the International Baccalaureate program at Springstead High; the consolidated gifted program at Explorer K-8.
And, although the district once chronically lagged behind its neighbors when it came to standardized test scores, last summer the state awarded it an "A'' — a rating based mostly on test results.
Malcolm, a former teacher and critic of excessive testing, doesn't consider this rating definitive. Neither do I.
Some of his innovations, inevitably, came with downsides. As Malcolm might phrase it: Have magnets to some extent created a system of educational haves and have-nots? Yes (I think), absolutely.
Obviously, he had a lot of help along the way from other board members and administrators, and, it seems to me, from a political atmosphere slightly more forgiving than the County Commission's.
School Board members don't have to worry as much about being punished for wayward votes by special interest groups or penny-pinching taxpayers; witness the two sales tax levies voters approved during Malcolm's tenure.
Even so, Malcolm's independence — demonstrated at his last meeting by his challenge of behind-the-scenes moves by superintendent Wayne Alexander — was rare and impressive.
So was the way he pursued educational improvements: with intellectual curiosity, with the energy he showed in fixing up that old house. And with smarts.
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