Family, friends & South MS community mourn beloved teacher who taught students to believe

The sign outside his classroom says “Dear Dr. Smith.”

One by one, in neat pencil and bright pen, his students wrote that he was the kindest, smartest, best teacher.

“You saw my potential,” one teenager wrote of Gautier High School’s Robert D. Smith, whose death this month has left his family and community mourning his tragic loss.

“We love you,” wrote another.

His students’ words are part of an outpouring of grief from across the Pascagoula-Gautier School District and South Mississippi. Smith, 49, taught chemistry and physics at Gautier High School for more than a decade, and loved music, faith and his family, the people who knew him said. He was the kind of teacher who knew everything about anything. He told students over and over to believe in themselves.

Smith died quietly of an unknown cause at home the morning of Dec. 7. His funeral is on Tuesday.

“He was just the best guy you could ever meet,” said Sherri Smith, his wife.

Smith grew up in Poplarville and started playing music when he was young. He performed in his church’s handbell choir, joined Poplarville High School’s Green Machine Band and then the Famous Maroon Band at Mississippi State University. He was band booster president for East Central High School, where the band directors said he attended every event. His three children grew up to love music, too.

He earned his doctorate in education administration from the University of Southern Mississippi and spent more than two decades teaching, first at George County High School, then in Gautier. His classes were tough but beloved. He asked all his students to write mini dissertations about whatever they wanted, his wife said.

Some struggled through the challenge. “You can do it,” he would tell them. “I don’t doubt you.”

“He just believed in them,” said Jenne King, a co-worker who knew Smith for years, and whose daughter he coached in soccer. “It gave them confidence,” she said. “They felt that they could conquer everything.”

Smith’s children, who each share his initials, said he was always there, for every audition, karate competition, archery shoot, band performance and soccer game. He cheered for them louder than anyone.

“To simply say he was the best husband and father barely begins to accurately describe the great man he was,” his children, Robert, Randi and Reagan wrote. “We are beyond blessed to have the honor and privilege of calling him our daddy and sharing his initials.”

He was a gentleman. Smith’s cousin, Ange Godfrey, said he would stand after orchestra every Sunday and help each woman down the stairs from the stage. “That was just him,” she said. “A kind gesture all the time.”

People called him brilliant.

“He was always there to support us,” said Timothy McMillen, the East Central band director. “He was really the smartest guy that I’ve ever known.”

Smith brought in a biodiesel machine and gave students extra credit if they supplied vegetables to convert to gas. He called calculators “dumb boxes” and believed students were smart enough to do math in their heads. He was always smiling and sometimes played music in class at the end of the day. He treated teenagers like young adults, and was so positive he kept them from having bad days, one of his 11th grade students recalled.

His wife, Sherri, is a nurse who never liked chemistry in school. But she watched her husband teach one day. No wonder his students loved his classes, she said. “It’s fascinating to hear it from him.”

The people who loved him will miss his signature beard and the jingle of his keys. They will miss his care, such as when he loaned his co-worker, David Weigle, his car.

The two teachers talked every day on morning duty. “We could just talk about anything,” Weigle said.

Jon Rutland, a great friend who taught with Smith at Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College’s summer chemistry camp, can hardly believe his phone will no longer buzz with Smith’s messages. The two would text all the time about memes, jokes and TV series. Smith’s humor made Rutland burst out laughing.

“We just always talked about things that were nerdy,” Rutland said. “It was almost like a nerd bromance.”

There are too many good memories for Smith’s wife, Sherri, to count. His children, too, cannot count how many times he was stopped by a former student, who said they could never have made it without his support.

“He expected greatness out of everybody he met because he knew that they could do it,” Sherri Smith said.

She will miss him, always.

“And love him forever,” she said.