Thomas D. Bollin

A Toledo boy who grew up in the North End, Tom graduated from Woodward High School and then held nearly every position available to an educator in his 35+ year career. He received his bachelor’s, master’s, and education specialist degrees from the University of Toledo. Throughout his career in education, he was a teacher and theater director (University of Toledo, Perrysburg High School, DeVilbiss High School), a vice principal (Fulton Elementary), principal (Oakdale Elementary), executive director of elementary education and then assistant superintendent of the Toledo Public Schools, and then Superintendent of both the Lorain Public School System and the Robbinsdale Area Schools (Minnesota).

Along the way, Tom was elected as President of the Toledo Education Association, and he won many professional awards including, on multiple occasions, Educator of the Year. He was a Martha Holden Jennings scholar and was inducted into the Woodward High School Hall of Fame.

Tom was also involved in his community, serving as a City Councilman in Perrysburg, Ohio, and on many community boards including North Memorial Hospital in Robbinsdale, Minnesota. He teamed up with his friend Sam Szor for over 20 years to serve as M.C. for the Music Under the Stars concert series at the Toledo Zoo Amphitheater.

Tom loved theater – he took the family to Stratford, Ontario, New York City, and London to see plays and musicals. He loved good food and new experiences. He found new restaurants before others, and then served as a one-man marketing machine / evangelist for the ones he loved. He loved travel – saving up to take his family abroad in the summer and bouncing from one Frommer’s Guide inn to the next, speaking broken French or Spanish or Dutch or German (or in an awkward British accent, for some reason) to the proprietor with a winning grin that made them forgive him his American inability to communicate in anything but English. In retirement, he traveled extensively. But most of all Tom loved his friends and family. He’d stay up late talking politics, or theater, playing cards, laughing and telling stories. After a career that touched thousands and thousands of children, his greatest pride were his own children and – even more – his grandchildren. If there was a game, or a meet, or a concert, he was there, beaming.

Tom is survived by his beloved children, daughter Buffy DeWitt, son Kip (Cathy) Bollin, adored grandchildren Emily, Kenny, and Cameron, former wife Connie Bollin, and his dear cousin Kathleen Brunt.

A Celebration of Life will be held Saturday, November 4, 2023, at 11:00 a.m. at West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church in Rocky River, Ohio.

In lieu of flowers the family would be grateful for contributions to the Woodward High School Hall of Fame scholarship program: https://www.woodwardhalloffame.org/scholarships

Fond memories and expressions of sympathy may be shared at www.CorriganCraciunFuneralHome.com for the Bollin family.