Gloria Hearn Ruffins, celebrated teacher, education expert, and community advocate, has died at 82
She and her husband were mesmerized by the crowds and drama at the Penn Relays, and attended every year for decades. “It was so exciting,” she said in 2021.
Gloria Hearn Ruffins, 82, of Philadelphia, celebrated elementary schoolteacher in the School District of Philadelphia, education expert, community advocate, mentor, and Penn Relays superfan, died Saturday, Aug. 17, of metastatic lung cancer at her home.
Dr. Ruffins earned a master’s degree and doctorate in higher education and child development at the University of Pittsburgh in the 1970s, and spent two decades, from 1985 to 2006, teaching first-grade students at A.S. Jenks School in South Philadelphia. She was adept at introducing children to math and reading, history and geography, and the school named her its 1995 teacher of the year.
She created innovative techniques to make learning easier, pinpointed social skills as a priority, and invited adults from all walks of life to visit her classroom. She spent her own money to buy stickers, trinkets, and other rewards for lessons well learned, and, even in retirement, was greeted warmly by former students and parents wherever she went.
She mentored student teachers from Drexel and Temple Universities, and her Earth Day lesson in 1990 was featured as a “farsighted project” in the August issue of Teacher magazine. Later, when Jenks was found to have unsafe levels of asbestos and other toxins in the building, she was at the forefront of organizing teachers and staff to demand a remedy.
“I was never in her class, but she was my first and greatest teacher,” said her daughter, Ebonne Leaphart. “She was about making kids happy and excited to learn.”
Earlier, Dr. Ruffins was director of education for Baptist Children’s Services in Philadelphia. From 1978 to 1982, she coordinated 10 staff members, evaluated academic placement exams, and created educational programs for dozens of students at risk. Before that, she worked briefly in other educational supervisory positions in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, and taught elementary school students in Chicago and Elgin, Ill.
In 1965, she became the first Black teacher in the DeKalb, Ill., school district. “She’s the smartest person I know, and I love listening to her,” her husband, Jim, told The Inquirer in 2021 for a feature about their lifelong love affair. “She’s fun, and she’s a very kind person who is very much interested in other people and concerned about other people.”
Outside the classroom, Dr. Ruffins was active with the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers and Spruce Hill Community Association. She was a vacation Bible schoolteacher at White Rock Baptist Church, and she decorated patient rooms at a rehabilitation center in West Philadelphia. She was also a poll watcher, vote counter, and committeeperson in West Philadelphia’s 27th political ward.
A gold-medal-winning sprinter as a girl in Chicago, she became a regular, with her husband, at the annual Penn Relays every April at the University of Pennsylvania’s Franklin Field. They first heard about the three-day track and field carnival in the late 1960s when they lived in Greensburg, Pa., 35 miles southeast of Pittsburgh, and they made it a point to attend every year for decades and host postrace parties after they moved to Philadelphia in 1975.
“When you have the same seats year after year, you meet so many people in front of you, behind you, beside you,” she said in 2021. “So you are seeing friends again.”
» READ MORE: Mrs. Ruffins celebrated a love of learning, teaching, and the Penn Relays
Gloria Patricia Hearn was born Sept. 4, 1941, in Holly Springs, Miss. Her family moved to Chicago when she was young. She liked to roller skate and became a track star and cheerleader in high school.
Her father died when she was 12, and she returned to Mississippi often to visit family and friends. She earned a bachelor’s degree in elementary education and psychology at Northern Illinois University in 1963, and a master’s degree at Pittsburgh in 1972 and doctorate in 1975. At Northern Illinois, she also won a scholarship after being selected as the school’s first Black beauty queen.
She met Jim Ruffins in high school, and they married in 1963, had daughter Ebonne, and lived in Chicago, DeKalb, Greensburg, and Pittsburgh before moving to Philadelphia. “She was really smart, bright, and interesting, and it was nice to be around her,” her husband said in 2021.
She and her husband were foodies and members of a local gourmet club. She belonged to the Delta Sigma Theta sorority, and she and her family traveled across the country and around the world after she retired.
She amassed dozens of college pennants from her Penn Relays party guests over the years and collected miniatures and dollhouses. She overcame breast cancer in 2001 and 2019, and sought out other survivors to encourage and support.
“She was like her name, and her friends called her Glo,” her daughter said. “She was spectacular, gentle and positive, cuddly and beautiful.”
In addition to her husband and daughter, Dr. Ruffins is survived by a grandson, a sister, and other relatives. Two brothers died earlier.
A celebration of her life is to be held at 10 a.m. Saturday, Aug. 24, at Salem Baptist Church of Abington, 2741 Woodland Rd., Abington, Pa. 19001.