Robert Lee Schimp

 1949 -

Robert (Bob) Schimp, singer and conductor, taught music at both the elementary and high school level for forty years in the Midwestern and Eastern U.S. He also served as principal at two schools and taught art, Bible, photography, computer, and industrial education classes.

Bob was born and raised in New Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, one of three children of Raymond L. and Margaret DeGarmo Schimp. He attended Blue Mountain Academy and in his senior year won the American Temperance Society’s national award for his poster on smoking. After graduating from BMA in 1968, he attended Andrews University, where he completed a B.S. degree in 1972. He later took additional music study at Blair School of Music and Vandercook School of Music.

In his junior year at AU he served as chair of the student association public relations committee and played the role of the young Ebenezer Scrooge in a production of The Stingiest Man in Town, a musical play based on Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.

He started his teaching career at Indianapolis Junior Academy. While there, he married Karen Hartson in 1974. A Michigan native, she completed two B.S. degrees at AU in 1975. They would have two children Kristi (Haslem), who now resides in Coventry, England, and Robert Kurtis, who lives in Denver with his wife, Annie.

Schimp next taught upper grades and music and served as principal at York SDA School in Pennsylvania. He subsequently taught music and other classes at Highland, Takoma, Mt. Vernon, and Sunnydale academies; Forest Lake Educational Center; and The Oaks Adventist Christian School, where he also served as principal and Bible teacher. He was teaching at Highland Academy in Tennessee at the time of his retirement.

ds/2013

Sources: Highland Academy website, summary sheet for Bob and Karen Schimp (2007); Columbia Union Visitor, 27 June 1968, 12, and 25 January 1979; Lake Union Herald, 24 November 1970, 16; Marion County, Indiana, Marriage Index, 1925-2012, Ancestry.com; Father’s obituary, The Derrick (Pennsylvania), 12 February 2001.