Rump: ‘The job never stops’

Ryan Rump is a very busy guy.

As the activities director for the Newton Community School District, Rump has a hand in managing, scheduling and sometimes attending just about every high school event there is in the area. He’s involved in everything; from Pacesetters dance team performances to Newton High School basketball games. Never a dull moment.

"There's always something going on," Rump said. "The job never stops. That's just part of it. You know that when you sign up for it, and we love doing it."

Less than a year has passed since Rump was hired as the NCSD activities director. The school district announced Rump as the new activities director in March 2018, and he would subsequently begin his duties July 1, the Newton Daily News previously reported.

The Fort Madison native replaced Scott Garvis, who left Newton High School to serve as the director of athletics and activities for Ankeny Centennial High School. With 17 years of experience under his belt as an athletic director — 10 years at Burlington Notre Dame, 3 years at Keokuk and 4 years at Knoxville — Rump certainly knows his way around the job.

However, Rump’s workdays might not go as smoothly if not for the “good people” he works with on a regular basis.

“Just trying to get the right people in the right places and trying to get high quality coaches and sponsors to run our events or run our activities,” Rump said. “We trust those people are going to do a good job and give our kids a good experience.”

With the sheer amount of activities and athletics available to students (and to Rump), time management can be a priceless asset.

“You want to try to give each sport or activity an equal amount of time as best you can,” Rump said. “Obviously there are certain times where you need to be some place and you can’t be some place else. It’s physically impossible to be at every event that goes on.”

Rump is appreciative of the support he has from administrative staff and his assistants that “will fill in and help” him out if he cannot be at a particular event.

“I also have a really good administrative assistant in Mindi Walker and she helps me with everything under the sun — she’s really a great help to me,” Rump said. “Together, we make a really good team and we do the best we can.”

Providing varied activities, he added, is important for students and their high school experience.

“What we want to do is provide opportunities — multiple opportunities — for kids to be involved in whatever it is that they enjoy doing,” Rump said. “In turn, we want to give them a good experience so that they can learn some different life lessons and some different things through those activities, positive characteristics that they can take with them out into the real world.

“When they go on to go to college or go out and get a job or start a family, hopefully they’ve learned some core values through our activity programs that they can take with them that will make them better employees, better moms, better dads, better family members — those sorts of things.”

Newton Daily News Sports Editor Jocelyn Sheets contributed to this report.

Contact Christopher Braunschweig at 641-792-3121 ext. 6560 or
cbraunschweig@newtondailynews.com