By Cecil Egbele | Contributing Writer | California Local News Fellow

After 35 years with the Bakersfield City School District, Lewis Neal leaves behind generations of students, mentors, and a blueprint for the work to continue.

Visitors to Lewis Neal’s office at the Bakersfield City School District quickly understand his enormous impact on generations of students even before the 64-year-old administrator utters a single word.

Awards, photos, plaques, trophies, and certificates accumulated over decades of working with young people adorn the walls. There’s also a classroom poster that perhaps best captures Neal’s driving philosophy: “We all smile in the same language.”

Speaking with Bakersfield News Observer reporter Cecil Egbele, Neal – who retired Aug. 27 after roughly 35 years with the district – did not focus on his numerous honors. Rather, he spoke about people and influences that shaped his life.

The boy before the man

Neal recalled the teachers who believed in him as a child, and the students who needed someone to see their potential.

“I think that’s my best satisfaction, the joy I get,” Neal said. “Kids respond to people who care about them, who lift them up and who believe in them.”

In many ways, Neal has spent his career returning that gift.

Growing up in Bakersfield, Neal attended Fremont Elementary School, Chipman Junior High and Lincoln Junior High before graduating from Bakersfield High School.

At Chipman, where he took the bus from his neighborhood, Neal recalled encountering a school environment that exposed him to students from different racial and ethnic backgrounds.

He remembered feeling like his presence was quietly questioned. “But his teachers helped change that experience.

“I remember him being a very respectful, engaging, curious (boy), silly, silly at times, just full of fun,” said Leasa Royal Sutliff, his third-grade teacher, who is now 83.

During an assembly rehearsal, she recalled that Neal kept his classmates laughing so much that the class eventually had to abandon practice and return to the classroom.

“He was just so pleasant,” she said.

But Sutliff said there was more to him than humor. She remembered a child who cared about other students and was willing to help, his smile, and his ability to connect with children and adults.

Teresa Guerra Espinoza, a childhood classmate who attended school with Neal from pre-kindergarten through fourth grade, remembered him as her guardian in the classroom.

“Lewis was always my protector,” she recalled. “I was always the smallest one in the classroom, and Lewis and Benny were always my big brothers. He was always the one to speak up.”

Decades later, Guerra sees the same instinct in the children Neal serves.

“You can obviously tell that these kids look up to Lewis as a mentor, as a big brother, as a parent,” she said. “They trust him.”

Even as a child, Guerra said, Neal was the person who spoke up when something was wrong.

Later, during his middle school years at Lincoln, educators like Bill McClain broadened Neal’s horizons through field trips to Washington, D.C., and New York, teaching him that a child’s possibilities stretch far beyond their immediate ZIP code.

The young man with the black binder

Neal, who initially considered a career in law, took a different course in the 1990s when the Bakersfield School District launched the Black Male Student Project to support underperforming male students.

Ida Randall, a district administrator tasked with screening applicants, walked down the hall to invite Neal into his interview and was instantly struck by his poise.

“I was impressed with his professional demeanor, professional dress, and he carried a black binder,” Randall recalled.

She recalled him sharing his experiences growing up in the Fremont School area, supervising group homes for African American boys and men.

“He understood many of the challenges young males faced. Lewis had the skillset to develop a team and lead,” Randall recalled.

Randall, who became Neal’s mentor before retiring from the district in 2006, said she watched the young man with the black binder become a “visionary and compassionate leader.”

PROUD Academy, the scorecard and a legacy left behind

Neal implemented the National Youth Sports Program with Cal State Bakersfield, a program that has now connected with an estimated 8,000 students.

His signature initiative was the PROUD Academy, serving roughly 3,000 of Bakersfield’s African-American youth.

His other projects include Parent University, a program that helps parents become active participants in their children’s success, and the Links, Inc. Bakersfield chapter’s STEAM Academy, a hands-on learning session at Emerson Middle School.

Neal’s work was shaped partly by his own insecurities as a Black child among other races, and his personal mantra: “I’m just as good as you.”

He worked on his communication skills, excelled in spelling, and learned to present himself confidently. Later, he began teaching young people– particularly Black students– to express themselves through speaking, reading, and writing.

He recalled a student once asking him if they had left town during a visit to California State University, Bakersfield.

His response was to take them farther– pairing cultural field trips, leadership conferences, and mentoring with a curriculum centered on Black history and achievement. Students now travel to HBCU showcases and twice a year to Colonel Allensworth, where he hopes former students will volunteer to train as docents.

“It’s not just about slavery,” Neal said. “It’s about geniuses. It’s about our engineers, our scientists, our African-American females. Our kids didn’t know that information.”

A lifetime of impact, remembered.

Current students describe the Powerful Resilient Outstanding Unique Determined (PROUD) Academy program as one that reshaped how they see themselves.

Dey’Anna Lloyd, a sixth-grader at King Elementary, said she went from avoiding public speaking to now delivering Black History speeches.

“He is one in a million,” she said. “Mr. Neal gave me opportunities. He shows he believes in every single last one of us by his actions.”

Another sixth grader, Memory Penn, said she’d never personally met Neal but thanked him for the PROUD program

“I wasn’t really confident before,” she said. “Now I learned how to be more outgoing.”

She credited her direct mentor, youth services specialist Victor Hinojos, for that growth.

Hinojos, who has worked under Neal for more than five years,  credited him for his mentorship model.

“Mr. Neal is a leader who trusts his staff, but a leader who also has been in the work that we do,” he said. “His true vision is that children needed to be exposed to environments outside of what they see on an everyday basis, so that college or university settings aren’t foreign concepts to them.”

Hinojos said Neal taught his team the power of relationships, and that unlocking the greatness inside every student requires trust, consistency, and genuine connection.

Neal said he left a roadmap of future ideas with his team.

“My staff has the blueprint. All they have to do is follow it,” he said.

35 years after

Neal said he is enjoying the shift to an unscheduled life.

“It is relief, and it’s just freedom,” he said of his first days off work. But he is quick to admit he will get bored quickly if he doesn’t stay active.

Espinoza doesn’t think Neal’s story is finished.

“I truly believe that he is going to do so many more things, great things in this world,” Espinoza said.

Randall said, “Bakersfield is losing a visionary and compassionate leader.”

She said she hopes to see Neal inducted into the district’s Hall of Fame.

While he is currently stepping back for a few months to recharge, travel, and live an impromptu life, Neal’s next phase is clear.

“I know what I’ll do later,” he said. “It will be with young people because that’s what I love to do.”