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Gary Safrit, Blue Ridge assistant principal, dies
By Lynn Hotaling
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Gary Safrit
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A popular Jackson County school administrator died Monday (Aug. 13).
Gary Safrit, assistant principal at Blue Ridge School for the past two years, died at Harris Regional Hospital of cancer. He was 57.
Superintendent Sue Nations, who hired Safrit two years ago, said he will be missed in the school system.
“Gary Safrit was a wonderful man,” she said Tuesday. “He was a great administrator and a real asset to the school. I believe he was well loved in that community.”
Blue Ridge Principal Carol Rector echoed Nations’ sentiments.
“Gary was an absolute gentleman,” she said. “He loved Blue Ridge, its staff and its students.
Safrit’s loss will be felt keenly at the school because he was a good role model for students with a wonderful sense of humor, Rector said.
“He was loved by the folks at Blue Ridge, and we’re all going to miss him,” she said.
Services are planned today (Thursday) at 2 p.m. at East Sylva Baptist Church. The Revs. Tommy James and Charles Stevens will officiate. The family will receive friends at the church during the hour prior to the service.
Safrit, who had retired as principal at South Edgecombe Middle School and had been principal at South Edgecombe High for four years before moving to the middle school, accepted the assistant’s job at Blue Ridge in July 2004.
Safrit spent much of his career at West Rowan High School, where he was head baseball and girls basketball coach and an assistant football coach.
He received his bachelor’s degree in physical education in 1971 from Appalachian State University and earned master’s degrees in counseling and school administration from North Carolina A&T in 1985 and 1988, respectively.
He is survived by his wife, Judy, of Tuckasegee, and three children, April Thompson, Robert Safrit and Gary Safrit, all of Salisbury.
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