Dr. David Willard is an award-winning educator, author, editor, elected official, and community servant. In his 30-year career in education, he has worked in some of the nation’s finest schools such as Sidwell Friends in Washington, DC, The Langley School in McLean, VA, and the Harvard Graduate School of Education in Cambridge, MA. He is currently the Middle School Dean of Students at All Saints Episcopal School in Beaumont, TX, which is also the school he desegregated as a child as its first African-American student.

David has firm roots in Beaumont running five generations deep. As a community leader, he follows in the footsteps of family members including educators, business owners, and his parents, crusading civil rights and criminal defense attorney Elmo R. Willard, III, and Pat Willard, former Beaumont educator and outreach coordinator for the Gift of Life Program.

A graduate of Morehouse College with a B.A. in Finance, Dr. Willard also earned two Master's degrees and a Doctorate from the Harvard Graduate School of Education where he co-authored and edited the book Grass Roots Social Action: Lessons in People Power Movements with Charles V. Willie, noted professor, sociologist, Morehouse classmate and confidant of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. While at Harvard, in conjunction with former NAACP Chair and civil rights icon Julian Bond and nineteen inter-school Harvard graduate students, David helped create the first-ever Havard chapter of the NAACP.  

In 2019, he was elected Commissioner-at-Large for the Port of Beaumont, TX. He is also a member of the Christus Southeast Texas Health System Regional Board. David has worked extensively with the Minnie Rogers Juvenile Justice Center and IEA of Beaumont, which awarded him the “Dr. Preston W. Shaw Volunteer of the Year” Award. He was the inaugural recipient of the Connie Wooten Excellence in Teaching Award in 2017 given by the Southwestern Association of Episcopal Schools, a governing and accreditation body for 114 Episcopal schools throughout the southwest region of the United States. He was recently profiled in Issue 9 of the national magazine Stranger’s Guide. The issue focused on the state of Texas.  He has also been featured in several local publications and media outlets.

He lives in Beaumont with his wife, Kim Taft Willard, a Recruiter in the Human Resources Department for Education First FCU.  David’s commitment to service is richer and deeper due to his dedication to family, to community, and to place.