Benjamin Demps Jr.
Former Director of DHS, FAACenter Administrator Is Dead

 

By W. ORLANDO PIERCE
Special to the Chronicle

 

Benjamin Demps Jr., the former administrator of the Mike Monroney Federal Aviation Administration Center in Oklahoma City, who went on to become director of the Oklahoma Department of Human Services and to lead as superintendent the Kansas City, Mo., public school district, died Saturday in Port Charlotte, Fla., where he lived. 
He was 79.
Mr. Demps died at Peace River Regional Medical Center in Port Charlotte after he suffered complications during surgery.
Mr. Demps was an air traffic controller and supervisor at the New York Air Route Traffic Control Center and served as superintendent of the FAA Academy in Oklahoma City in 1976.
In 1979, he became the first Black director of the Monroney FAA Center here.
While serving in that capacity, he was praised for his management during the air traffic controller strike in Aug. 1981.
Presidential Honors
From 1985 to 1991, Mr. Demps was director of the FAA’s Europe, Africa and Middle East office in Brussels, Belgium.
It was during his tenure there that he helped develop the policy for placing armed federal marshals on flights, according to Ricky Brown, Mr. Demps’ grandson.
Mr. Demps received two Presidential Meritorious Executive Service Awards, one from President Jimmy Carter in 1980 and another from President George H.W. Bush in 1991.
In 1991, Mr. Demps returned to Oklahoma City to become director of the state’s gargantuan welfare program, becoming the first Black to serve as director of DHS, a position he held until Jan. 1994.
Overstaffing
While DHS director, Secretary Demps dealt with a controversial over-staffing of the Central Oklahoma Juvenile Treatment Center in Tecumseh.
It was reported at the time that more than 170 employees were taking care of a mere 13 youths in a facility that could house 76 juveniles.
The center’s annual budget then was $6.3 million, of which $5.1 million went to payroll.
As DHS director, Secretary Demps consolidated the agency’s resources, leading to the furlough of 88 employees and converting the center from a juvenile psychiatric facility to a center for juvenile offenders.
After his tenure at DHS, Mr. Demps was named superintendent of the Kansas City school district.
Superintendent
He took on that task at a time when the school district was in dire straits, and The Kansas City Star welcomed him to the position with a feature that asked if he was “The Savior?”
“Many students in the Kansas City school district will be unable to read this article,” the story began.  “A greater percentage can read the article but will not be able to comprehend what they have read.”
The article went on to point out that the district was then on the verge of bei9ng stripped of its accreditation by the Kansas Board of Education.
It pointed out, too, that a majority of the district’s 35,000 students were not meeting basic academic standards.
That’s what Mr. Demps faced when he signed on as superintendent.
‘Patience’
“All I’m asking for is patience,” Mr. Demps said as he took the reins of a school district that had been under a court desegregation order stemming from a 1977 lawsuit.
“I don’t mind the criticism….that comes with the job,” he said.  “I’ve got confidence in what I’m doing.”
“When you’ve been an air traffic controller, and you need to bring down the plane safely, you have to trust your own judgment,” the newly-named superintendent went on.
Soon, though, the state education board removed accreditation from the school district.
Supt. Demps bristled at the action and complained about the timing.
“I’m incensed for our graduating seniors,” he said.
His tenure as superintendent would turn out to be tumultuous.
Reinstated
He was fired by the school board, but was then reinstated by a federal judge before resigning along with six members of his staff.
“I just had tremendous respect for the man,” former Board Member Patricia Krutz said Monday after hearing of Mr. Demps’ death.  “I thought, ‘Had he been allowed to stay, we would have seen a much better district.’
“He was making some really good changes, as far as academics go.”
Quit
Supt. Demps had fought for the authority to fire staff, teachers and principals without interference from the Kansas City school board.
“….The governance of this district is fundamentally and fatally flawed,” he said after quitting.  “It is broken, and it cannot be fixed.”
Former Board Member Al Mauro said Monday he was sorry to see Supt. Demps go.
“I just hoped at the time the community would let him complete what I thought was the right vision,” former Board Member Mauro said.
David  A. Smith, now chief of the Kansas City, Kan., school district, was among those who quit with Supt. Demps.
Bureaucracy
“I learned so many things from him,” he said, referring to Supt. Demps.  “He was the first person who taught me that bureaucracy was actually a really important thing.”
“It can be organized in ways to make things function much more efficiently,” Supt. Mauro stated.
Born Jan. 5, 1934, in Harlem, N.Y., Mr. Demps graduated with a bachelor’s degree from State University of New York, having majored in political science.
He earned a law degree from Oklahoma City University and passed the Oklahoma bar exam in 1982.
Mr. Demps served in the U.S. Air Force from 1952 to 1956.
His marriage to Patricia R. Demps ended in divorce.
He married Carolyn Eubanks Bryan in 2002, and they moved to Port Charlotte that year.
Mr. Demps is survived by his wife; two daughters, Jacqueline Demps Brown and Carolyn Demps Simon; a stepdaughter, Kathleen Bryan; and a stepson, Stephen Bryan.
He is also survived by two sisters, Hazel Demps Jordan and Phyllis Demps Mobley.
Three grandchildren survive Mr. Demps, as well.
A family spokesman said a cremation has been planned.