Pioneer educator and administrator
Dr. George H. Hyram, former Executive Vice President for Administration at Harris-Stowe State University, and a 2002 Salute to Excellence in Education Lifetime Achiever, passed away suddenly on Friday, October 30, 2009, after complications with surgery. Dr. Hyram, who worked for the university for nearly 30 years under President Henry Givens Jr., recently retired in September and served as consultant to the university.
Dr. Hyram was born on October 6, 1920, in Morrilton, Arkansas, as the third child of George Wesley and Louise Lutisha Hyram. When his parents moved to St. Louis in 1923, he and his oldest sister, Ruby, relocated with them. Later, his second sister, Elvie, joined the family. His parents and sisters preceded him in death.
George, along with his two sisters, were a product of the St. Louis Public School System. He later graduated from Simmons Elementary School in 1934. He attended and graduated, as an honor student from Sumner High School in 1938.
He immediately enrolled in the junior college division of Stowe Teachers College, a separate WPA-funded educational unit. Later, when the junior college was taken over by the St. Louis Board of Education, George remained one of its students and received the Associate in Arts Degree in 1941. He, soon after, went on to Lincoln University in Jefferson City to complete his undergraduate education. While at Lincoln, he became a Sphinxman in the university’s chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Inc.
Within his first year at Lincoln, the Board of Education of the City of St. Louis opened its two teachers colleges – Harris Teachers College and Stowe Teachers College – to men, for the first time. George immediately returned to St. Louis and resumed his studies at Stowe, where, in the fall of 1941, he became one of the charter members of Alpha Eta Chapter of the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Inc.
In the fall of 1942, Dr. Hyram was drafted into the U.S. Army and served nearly four years in World War II. He remained in the Army until early 1946, when the war ended. Having been awarded his A.B. degree by Stowe, in absentia in 1943, George returned to Stowe to complete two courses in Education in order to begin serving as an elementary school teacher at the former Waring School.
During the war years, George was sent to the U.S. Army’s Specialized Training Program at Hamilton College, in New York, where he studied the French language and culture, culminating in another A.A. degree. In 1938, George earned his master’s degree in Education at Saint Louis University, and later was given a Parsons Blewitt Scholarship by the Saint Louis Public Schools to conduct a doctoral study on teaching children critical thinking, the basis for his doctoral dissertation. The findings from that study were published in a Missouri magazine and included a test in critical thinking for children. Dr. Hyram later succeeded Bill Pearson as Dean of the Zorzor Teacher Training School in Liberia, West Africa, in 1961.
In 1951, Hyram won a Fulbright Scholarship to study the French language and the French educational system at the Sorbonne in Paris. Later, after receiving his doctorate, Hyram was appointed as one of the St. Louis Public Schools’ first teachers of the gifted. Soon afterwards, he left the public schools to join the faculty at Saint Louis University, where he later became first the head of SLU’s Department of Education and later the university’s Vice President for Personnel Administration.
In 1980, at the request of Dr. Henry Givens Jr., who had been named the new president of Harris-Stowe College a year earlier, Hyram joined the administration of Harris-Stowe State College as its Dean of Academic Affairs and, later, as its Vice President for Academic Affairs and Administration. He retired from that position in 1987, but continued as a part-time consultant until October 1999, when, at Givens’ request, he came out of retirement as the College’s Executive Vice President for Administration, a position which he held until September 2009.
He has received numerous awards and recognitions, including an honorary doctorate from his alma mater and has served on a number of governing boards.
To cherish his memory and celebrate his life are his niece JoAnn King; grand-nieces Pamela Smith, Juanita Smith and Carla Yokley (Robert); grand-nephews Wendell Smith, Stephen Hereford and Christopher Sweeney (April); great-grand nieces Skyler Yokely and Cervana Shanklin; great-grand nephews Dale Thompson, Corridan Sweeney and Noel Sweeney; close personal friends William A. Pearson, Dr. Henry Givens Jr., John Mackiewicz, Norman R. Seay and William D. Thomas; extended family: The Harris-Stowe State University faculty, staff, students and alumni.
Dr. Hyram’s visitation is scheduled for 9-11 a.m. Friday, November 6, 2009, Washington Metropolitan A.M.E. Zion Church (Garrison Avenue at Dr. Samuel Shepard Drive), with an Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity (Omega Service) at 10 a.m. and Funeral Service at 11 a.m. The interment will be at Valhalla Cemetery, located at 7600 St. Charles Rock Rd.