DALE LEE BRUBAKER 
GREENSBORO — Dale Brubaker, 75, passed away Thursday, June 6, 2013. A memorial service will be held at 2 p.m., Tuesday, June 11, 2013 at Irving Park United Methodist Church. The family will receive friends following the service.
Dale L. Brubaker was the son of Methodist minister Herbert C. Brubaker and elementary-schoolteacher Helen Miller Brubaker.
Born July 16,1937 in Ann Arbor, Michigan, he learned the universal language of music early through piano lessons. So did older brother Robert and younger sister Bette Jo. Dale also played the clarinet and took lessons from 1949-1951 at the Detroit Institute of Art from Marius Fossenkemper, Principal Clarinetist with the Detroit Symphony. The stage called to him as well and he performed leading roles in Gilbert & Sullivan operettas in high school. While insisting he was not a gifted musician and singer, Dale believed this musical background laid a foundation for him to be an author.
On the one hand there were the arts and on the other sports. Dale especially loved basketball and tennis. He was an All-Conference and All-Suburban basketball player his junior and senior years in high-school. Tennis began at age five and Dale would go on to compete on the junior circuit including the Orange Bowl International Championships and the National Championships at Stowe Stadium in Kalamazoo. He was the first recipient of the Stowe Memorial Award white a student at Albion College and entered the Athletic Hall of Fame there in 1993, the first male tennis player to do so.
While at Albion College from 1955-1959, Dale met Barbara Sue Stewart, the love of his life, soul-mate and best friend. His father officiated when they married on June 11,1960. Barbara taught second grade while Dale completed his master's and PhD degrees at Michigan State University. Dale was an assistant professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara from 1965-1969, an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee from 1969-1971 and a professor at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro from 1971 until 2006. He authored or co-authored numerous books on educational leadership, curriculum, teaching, dissertation research and writing. Dale particularly loved integrating teaching, research and writing. Few things gave him more satisfaction than his students' accomplishments and growth as educators.
The joy in Dale and Barbara's life were their children John, Michael and Carol, and grandchildren, Ellie, Mitch, Amy, Matthew and Kaylee. Family gatherings at Sunset Beach, North Carolina, and Lake Louise, Michigan, were full of tennis, sailing, bike riding, swimming and kayaking. Dale and Barbara particularly enjoyed watching the grandchildren perform at band concerts, dance recitals, musical productions, baseball games, swimming meets, soccer games, gymnastic contests and lacrosse games. Dale's love, respect and appreciation for son-in-law Todd Rush and daughter-in-law Alison Brubaker were deep. And so it was for his extended family most of whom live in Michigan. The Methodist Church was another home since birth and he celebrated his time with friends at Irving Park United Methodist Church.
Published in Greensboro, NC News Record on June 9, 2013