Another prominent educator of the state of Tennessee is Superintendent Robert Lee Bynum, now of Jackson. He has given generous service to the public schools of the state, both in the capacity of a teacher and as a superintendent. Both in county and city educational offices, he has done high credit to himself and to the collegiate institutions of which he is an alumnus.
Robert Lee Bynum is a native of this state, but a son of Kentucky parents. His father, William J. Bynum, and his mother, Theresa Gilbert Bynum, were living in Union City, Tennessee, where the former was a merchant and agriculturist, when the son was born whom they named Robert Lee. The date of his birth was September 28, 1867. William J. Bynum died in 1874, but the mother of our subject is still living, in Jackson.
In the rural schools of the vicinity of Union City, Robert L. Bynum received his elementary education. He later became a student in the Vanderbilt Training School at Union City and subsequently entered Bethel College at McKenzie, from which he was graduated with the degree of Bachelor of Philosophy.
The young Ph. B. gained his first teaching experience at Ashland, Mississippi. Returning thereafter to Tennessee, he held positions in schools in Obion County, gathering such experience and developing such ability that in 1897 he was elected superintendent of public instruction in Obion County. To this position he was successively re-elected, serving in his office until October of 1901, at which time he entered upon the duties of the principalship which he had accepted from the Jackson Board of Education, serving two years as principal of the intermediate department and two years as principal of the high school. At the end of that period his fitness for county superintendency again led to his election of such office. He therefore took charge of the school system at Madison County and devoted his time and thought to supervising the schools and examining and directing the teachers of this county until tendered the superintendency of the Jackson schools. This latest position came to him on June 14, 1912, and he entered upon its duties August 1, 1912. The many interested and appreciative patrons of the Jackson public schools view with confidence the future of the city’s most important enterprise—the education of her youth.
Superintendent Bynum is very well known throughout the state of Tennessee in all educational movements. From 1907 to 1909 he served as president of the Tennessee Public School Officers’ Association. He is president of the Tennessee State Teachers’ Association. In both the Tennessee State Board of Education and the National Educational Association he is an energetic member, as well as a prominent co-worker with his brother officials in the department of superintendents.
Mr. Bynum is a logical thinker along political lines. And while his political alignment is consistent with the famous name his parents bestowed upon him, his civic theories are nevertheless based upon carefully reasoned premises. His religious convictions are of the modern practical type that conceives morality as the highest raison d’etre of religion; he respects, therefore, all sects that aim for a high ethical standard and has a vigorous sympathy for each. His church membership is with the Jackson First Presbyterian Church, U.S. A., of which Mrs. Bynum is also a member.
In her girlhood Mrs. Bynum was Miss Fanny Allen, her native home being Mississippi. The Allen-Bynum marriage took place in 1894. In the subsequent years three children have completed the family, and have been named as follows: William Jennings, Gattye Louise and Robert L. Bynum, Jr. The Bynum family has been counted a most desirable acquisition to the life of Jackson. Superintendent Bynum is noted as a man of genuine cordiality as well as of great executive ability. He is a member of the Masonic order, in Jackson Lodge No. 332.
Source: Hale, Will T, and Dixon L. Merritt. A History of Tennessee and Tennesseans: The Leaders and Representative Men in Commerce, Industry and Modern Activities. Chicago: Lewis Pub. Company, 1913. Volume 5.
