School district’s first superintendent dies

Leland Newcomer, the first superintendent of the Newport-Mesa Unified School District and a nationally renowned educational leader, has died at the age of 86.

A lifelong educator who fought for racial equality and defended the right of principals to shape their schools, Newcomer took the reins of Newport-Mesa during the first year of its unification in 1966 and served as superintendent for two years. Afterward, he served as president of the University of La Verne. He died at Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center on April 9.

Newcomer’s colleagues, who helped him oversee Newport-Mesa during the district’s formative years, remembered him as a passionate leader whose ideas were often ahead of their time.

“He was a person who was friendly but also tough, not a milquetoast, not a pipsqueak,” said Les Shuck, who served as assistant superintendent under Newcomer. “He listened to reason, but the reason had to line up with what was best for students. If it couldn’t be demonstrated as being for the benefit of students, he lost interest.”

Newport-Mesa’s founding board members courted Newcomer for their first superintendent shortly after the Costa Mesa Union School District, Newport Beach City School District and Newport Harbor Union High School District voted to unify. A Time magazine profile in December 1965, written while Newcomer was superintendent of the Clark County School District in Las Vegas, caught the attention of the Newport-Mesa trustees.

Newcomer, a Southern California native, had taken a struggling district and turned it upside down, bringing in administrators from out of state, passing two bond measures and busing black students across town to ensure integrated campuses. Then-Newport Mesa trustee Marian Bergeson reasoned that Newcomer would be perfect for a district trying to make a name for itself.

“We were really looking for someone who had creative, innovative ideas,” Bergeson said.

During his short time in Newport-Mesa, Newcomer brought computers into classrooms and gave principals authority over their own budgets. Technology in schools was still rare in some parts of the country, but Newcomer encouraged his staff to embrace technology, keeping electronic records of attendance, grades and accounting.

He tried to pass a pair of bond measures to renovate schools, as he had done in Las Vegas, but voters declined both of them. Shuck and Bergeson said the failure of the bonds partly influenced Newcomer’s decision to move to the University of La Verne in 1968.

“I think he became frustrated because he didn’t feel the district was getting enough support from the community,” Bergeson said.

Newcomer was replaced by Bill Cunningham, who was in turn succeeded by John Nicoll, Newport-Mesa’s longest-serving superintendent. Even though few members of the current Newport-Mesa community knew their founding superintendent, the district expressed sadness at his passing when school resumed Monday after spring break.

“Newport-Mesa is saddened by the loss of Dr. Newcomer, who will have a legendary place in the history of Newport-Mesa Unified as the first superintendent to serve under unification,” administrative services coordinator Laura Boss wrote in a release.

Deputy Supt. Paul Reed called Newcomer “a true gentleman and a scholar.”

Shuck added that Newcomer’s greatest legacy was taking two diverse cities — and three school districts — and helping to combine them into a single entity.

“From my standpoint, he was a fantastic human being,” Shuck said. “He had vision and foresight where others didn’t.”