Married couple serve as principals at rival schools

By Donna Stephens

LITTLE ROCK — Perhaps the most divided household in Saline County - at least during the high school sports year - is the Rutherford home in Benton.

Randy Rutherford, 47, is principal at Bryant High School. His wife, Robbie, 41, is principal at Benton Junior High.

At this point, the tiebreaker is their son Nate, 13, an eighth-grader - at Benton.

“I wear my blue and she wears her maroon,” Randy Rutherford said.“What makes it a little more difficult is that Nate plays eighth-grade football and basketball, so when I go to Benton games, I’ll be in white to be politically correct.”

In the second school year of the divided loyalties in the Rutherford house, each side has experienced success.

“We’ve won the Salt Bowl both years, but she gets after me that she’s beaten me in basketball,” Randy said. “Ninth-gradewise, we have our own little back-and-forth. Nate right now just bleeds maroon, but I keep tellinghim that blue keeps dominating.”

Robbie’s sister, Rhonda Hall, is coach and teacher at Bethel Middle School in the Bryant District. She and her husband, Tim, are former head senior girls and boys basketball coaches, respectively, at Benton. Their daughter Macy is a senior at Bryant; son Riley is an eighth-grader there. So Randy, though outnumbered in his own home, has some help within the family.

“This year will be the first time Riley and Nate have played each other in basketball,” Robbie said. “But it isfun. We wear it proudly.”

Randy Rutherford grew up in Little Rock, a son of the late Bill Rutherford, the longtime Arkansas-Gazette journalist, and the nephew of Harry King, one of Arkansas’s elder statesmen of sports writers. Randy played basketball for Catholic and went to the University of Central Arkansas on a basketball scholarship; he earned his degree in physical education with a double major in business in 1985.

The women’s basketball coach atUC A was Ron Mar vel, who would, years later, become his father-in-law.

Rhonda Marvel Hall played basketball for the Sugar Bears while Randy Rutherford played for the Bears. Robbie Marvel, the younger sister, watched a lot of UCA basketball in those days.

Following graduation, Randy returned to Catholic High for two years, then became head basketball coach at Little Rock Fair for 10 more. He went to Pulaski Heights Junior High for a year as assistant principal then returned to Fair as head football coach for three years. He spent four years as an assistant principal at Little Rock Central, returned to Fair as principal for a year, then went to Benton as athletic director before settling at Bryant in 2007.

Robbie remembered being the little sister hanging around watching the Sugar Bears and Bears play. A few years later, she played tennis for the Sugar Bears while earning her degree in education with emphases in English and business. She finished her master’s degree in administration before taking her first teaching job at Fair. It was there that she and Randy became reacquainted and married.

Randy, who had two children from an earlier marriage, said becoming part of the Marvel family was a good fit for everyone.

“At the time I was coaching, and Robbie’s dad had been acoach, so she was used to the long hours away from home and knew what to expect,” he said. “It was easy for her to tag along. She understood the role.”

With the marriage, he was also reunited with Tim Hall, Rhonda’s husband, who had been a graduate assistant for the Bears while he played.

Robbie said, “It’s just been a good fit for all of us.”

She couldn’t really be a part of the family without some coaching on her resumé. She coached the Fair tennis team for four years and the volleyball team for one.

“I try to tell my daddy I was the smart one and didn’t go into coaching, but he says, ‘You’re in administration - you’re not the smart one,’” she said with a laugh.

After four years at Fair, she moved to her alma mater, Conway, for three years before coming to Benton about the time Nate was ready to start school. Hall and her family were already settled in Saline County; the Marvels also moved there after Ron Marvel retired from UCA. The Halls and Marvels live in Bryant.

“We’re the outcasts,” Randy said, referring to his family’s home on the Longhills Golf Course.

He earned his master’s degree from Henderson State Universit y, and the couple completed their educational specialist degrees from HSU a couple of years ago.

Although it was hard for him to give up coaching, Randy said administration seemed to be the right way to go.

“Bryant is a great place tobe,” he said. “We’ve got 2,100 kids (in grades 9-12) and 155 staff members, so it’s like a small town.”

He said with their latest degrees, both Rutherfords were available to be hired as superintendents.

“ I would like to go that way at some point, but we’ll just have to wait and see,” he said.

Robbie said she was more likely to stay at the school level.

“I enjoy what I do right now,” she said. “And I probably wouldn’t even mind being a classroom teacher again.”

That was her original role at Benton before spending four years as assistant principal at the high school, her first administrative job.

“My favorite thing is getting in the classrooms and seeing all the neat things teachers do,” she said. “It’s just phenomenal. I get to help kids in a different way. I’ve found out about a lot more personal things that are going on in kids’ lives than I did when I was a classroom teacher.”

When Randy joined her at Benton as athletic director, the family was consolidated at one school for the first time.

“We enjoyed being at one school,” Robbie said. “We all had the same schedule. Athletics is just a true love for him, but he wasn’t getting to know the kids (as an athletic administrator). He didn’t have that daily one-on-one interaction. He just really missed getting to know the kids.”

Pr incipal opportunit ies came for both in spring 2007. Bryant courted Randy for its high school job; Benton Junior High offered her its position.

“I wasn’t sure about junior high, even though in Conway I had taught one year of ninth grade and enjoyed it,” she said. “I hated to leave the high school, but it was something I really wanted to do. I really wanted to be a principal.”

She and two assistant principals are in charge of 700 students in eighth and ninth grades.

So anytime the battle of Saline County happens on the football field or basketball court, the Rutherfords are there - sometimes sitting together, sometimes patrolling their respective students.

“It depends on what’s going on with everybody else,” Randy said.

They’ll be the couple in blue and maroon.

Tri-Lakes, Pages 109, 110 on 11/30/2008