After nine years at the helm of the Cuyahoga Heights Schools, Superintendent Tom Evans had announced his retirement. The Board of Education accepted his resignation, effective on August 31,2024, at the April 10 meeting.
“I have been truly blessed to have spent over four decades as an educator, the last fourteen, at home here at Cuyahoga Heights,” said Evans. “I have stated to the board on many occasions that I have the best superintendent’s job in Ohio and still believe that as I move on from here.” Prior to being named Superintendent in 2015, Evans served as Cuyahoga Heights Middle School/High School Principal from December 2010 to July 2015.
Evans has a Bachelor of Science Degree in Agriculture from The Ohio State University, and a Master of Education Degree from Ashland University. He started his educational career in 1981 as a horticultural instructor at the Vanguard Vocational School then moved to the U.S. Grant Career Center where he taught horticulture and was assistant wrestling coach at Bethel Tate High School. From 1984 to 1985, he was horticulture instructor at Cleveland City Schools’ Washington Park School and also was a volunteer wrestling coach in the Cuyahoga Heights Schools. From 1985 to 1999 he taught horticulture at the Polaris Career Center while also working as an assistant football coach, head wrestling coach, and assistant track coach at Berea High School. He was a science teacher at Elyria Catholic High School from 1999-2002 and also head football coach and assistant wrestling coach. Evans was at the Medina County Career Center from 2002-2010 where he taught horticulture for one year and was assistant principal for seven years.
Evans is also a 1977 graduate of Cuyahoga Heights High School. “When I received my high school diploma here over forty-six years ago and stood in the lobby of the gymnasium, I knew in my heart that I would never stray too far from the education I received here at Cuyahoga Heights,” commented Evans in his letter of resignation. He thanked the Board of Education, administration, faculty, and staff, his wife and family, and the friendships he cultivated over the years for supporting him in the district’s mission to put the needs of students first.
Over his career as an educator, Evans has been heavily involved in the sport of wrestling as a coach, manager, and tournament director. He won several awards at the local and state level for promoting the sport of wrestling. In 2022, he received an award for “Lifetime Service to Wrestling'' from the Ohio Chapter of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame (NWHOF, for his decades-long role in helping to run and manage a multitude of tournaments and events, including sectionals, districts, the Catholic Invitational, and the Greater Cleveland All-Star Match.
In addition, Evans has been a broadcaster for high school football for WEOL radio from 2002 to the present and a broadcaster for Kent State University Football from 2021 to the present. He has done a weekly wrestling radio show on WEOL radio during wrestling season from 2021 to the present. Also, since 2021, he has done a weekly wrestling podcast for the Elyria Chronicle Telegram newspaper.
He and his wife, Lisa, are the proud parents of Tom’s sons Tom and Drew, and Lisa’s daughter, Mary Kate. The Evans’ are grandparents of granddaughter, Kennedy Kaczay, and grandsons, Alaric Evans and Owen Grueber.