Fred Adolphus Cooper sought to inspire students to learn during his nearly 60-year career as an educator that included service as principal of Richmond’s former Armstrong-Kennedy High School complex and later as co-owner of a student tutorial business in Chicago.

Mr. Cooper, 91, died on Monday, May 24, 2021, in Bethesda, Md., where he and his wife, Dr. Esther G. Cooper, now deceased, had moved five years ago to be closer to their children.

Mr. Cooper’s role in empowering students was celebrated during a service Saturday, June 12, at Scott’s Funeral Home Chapel in North Side.

“Education was never just a job for Fred,” his family wrote in his obituary. “Empowering minds was his calling and passion.”

He found that calling in joining the faculty of Armstrong High School in 1955 after earning his undergraduate degree in history at Virginia Union University and serving in the Army during the Korean War.

As a teacher, he “always expected the best from his students and sought to inspire them to do and be greater,” his family stated, citing his ability to reach students with his trademark mix of kindness and discipline.

In addition to his teaching duties, he also served as the athletic director at Armstrong.

After earning a master’s degree from Hampton University, Mr. Cooper sought administrative posts within Richmond Public Schools. He served in several positions, including assistant principal of Chandler Middle School, principal of Bowler Elementary School, curriculum specialist in history, chairman of the History Department at John Marshall High School, principal of Maggie L. Walker High School.

He then was tapped to serve as principal for both Armstrong and Kennedy high schools during the time they were combined as a complex. He retired from RPS in 1984.

He met and married Dr. Esther G. Davis in 1977. After he left RPS, the couple started a personnel recruiting firm, Esther Cooper & Associates.

Relocating to Chicago in 1990, the couple began operating a Sylvan Learning Center and consulting with Chicago Public Schools. Six years later, they began the Gregg Tutorial Service to provide learning as- sistance to students. They operated the service until 2014, when they closed it and fully retired.

Mr. Cooper rose to educational success from humble beginnings.

He was born in the Eastern Shore fishing village of Willis Wharf during the Great Depression. After a flood, his family moved to Northumberland County in the Northern Neck, where he excelled at the segregated Julian Rosenwald High School that served Black youths.

While at Virginia Union, he met his first wife, Florence Janie Neal, the longtime director of the Virginia Sickle Cell Anemia Awareness Program at Virginia Commonwealth University who became a national leader in focusing attention on sickle cell disease research and treatment and for whom VCU has created an endowed professorship in her honor.

Mr. Cooper’s survivors include his children, Charmaine Cooper-Jamison, the Rev. Lawrence N. Cooper; a stepson, Richard G. Davis; three grandchildren; and one great-grandchild.

The family requests that memorial contributions be sent to the Florence Neal Cooper Smith Professorship in Sickle Cell Research Fund/ MCV Foundation, P.O. Box 980234, Richmond, Va. 23298, or the William S. Cooper Scholar- ship Fund/VCU School of Pharmacy, P.O. Box 843042, Richmond, Va. 23284-3042.