Retired Educator and Children’s Book Author
Dr. Ray Butrum is known to many in Rutherford County as a former member of the Murfreesboro City Schools Board of Education, principal and teacher. Most recently, he was the Director of Schools for Bedford County before retiring. He was then diagnosed with stage-four mantle cell lymphoma, which he continues to fight.
Upon his retirement, he moved to Hobe Sound, Florida, and began to rework five books he had written for children. Originally publishing eight children’s books in 1999, he found a new illustrator after buying back the rights to his books from the company that originally published them and decided to feature his very special granddaughter, Hazel, in the new versions. Hazel has Down Syndrome.
His journey into writing the books actually began 30 years ago, when Multnomah Publishers signed him to do a 16-book series of science books written in rhyme. This contract sprung out of an assignment he was given by one of his professors when working on his Master’s Degree -- to write a children’s book.
“So, in my goofy way, I came up with ‘I saw a slimeball wiggle’ with my daughter, who was two at the time, in mind going to visit her grandparents on the family farm. Then I started teaching at Christiana Middle School and met Jim Chapman who was the art teacher there. I brought the book to school to read to my kids and they loved it even being 7th and 8th graders because it was about metamorphosis. Jim would come down to my room to eat lunch, and he saw it.”
Chapman’s brother-in-law was Stephen Curtis Chapman and he knew people who published books, so Jim took it for a year to present it to possible publishers. Then he illustrated it. Together they presented the completed book at the first young author’s conference at Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU). They did it in black and white, making Xeroxed copies at Kinko’s, and sold them for one dollar. It ended up being like a coloring book.
Jim Chapman knew some people at Multnomah Publishing through, Dr. Butrum thinks, the Baptist Sunday School Board. Their initial concept went over well and they were asked for three more ideas. The second one was I’ve Never Seen a Worm Like You. The third one was, I’m Sorry, You Can’t Hatch an Egg, which was revised to You Can’t Hatch an Egg for the new versions. This was only one of several changes Dr. Butrum made to the text when preparing them for republication. He worked on polishing up some of the rhymes, too.
“I had the first four completed and the second four ready for [Multnomah] when they sold their children’s division to Zondervan Christian Publishing,” explained Dr. Butrum. “We were a secular product in a Christian world. You know, science-based books…Then in 2004 they contacted me, asking if I would re-write them with some bible verses referenced. I said, ‘not really.” I would prefer to just drop the contract and get the rights to my first four books back. …So, I had them re-illustrated and put them back out into the market.”
About the same time his granddaughter was born. He asked his daughter if she minded if Hazel was featured in the new rendition of the books. While initially reluctant, in the end father and daughter agreed, with the family pet Rottweiler also featured in every book. Illustrator Ada Abigael Aco caught Hazel’s essence and sense of wonder perfectly.
Aco was found through a woman Dr. Butrum knew in Florida named Carol Hamer Hausman. Hausman had already published three of her own books. Her brother had been a student of Butrum’s when he taught at Christiana Middle School. Within a year they had all five books out under the umbrella “Science with Hazel.” Hazel’s new brother Anderson is featured in the last book, You Can’t Hatch an Egg.
Each book is short, well-constructed and is able to teach complicated concepts simply. At the back of each book is a glossary explaining the main concepts, words related to the concept and suggested resources for more learning.
Dr. Butrum began promoting his books at MD Anderson Cancer Treatment Center in Houston when he went for treatments every month as he fought his cancer diagnosis. He gave them to doctors and nurses who had children and grandchildren. He has also shared them with the MD Anderson Children’s Cancer Hospital.
In 2023, he submitted A Habitat for Me to the Young Readers’ Choice Awards, and he submitted the other four to the awards in 2024.
“Good family and classroom activities can be built around the books,” explained Dr. Butrum. “I even put suggestions on where to get supplies in my books…And when I go to schools, I ask the children if they know what rhyming words are, and they go, ‘oh, they sound the same.’”
Originally from Greenbriar, Tennessee, in Robertson County, Dr. Butrum made Murfreesboro his home after graduating from MTSU. Initially, after college, he became a teacher in Sumner County, Tennessee, then spent a year in Robertson County, then spent 27 years in Rutherford County/Murfreesboro and two years in Bedford County.
“I was a principal at Hobgood Elementary,” noted Dr. Butrum, “then spent a year as Director of Instruction for the Murfreesboro City Schools system, then I transferred to Barfield as an Assistant Principal, then became an Adjunct Teacher at MTSU and ran for Murfreesboro City Schools Board. I did six years of that.”
He left Murfreesboro City Schools to become Director of Schools in Bedford County, and he then left that position to take care of ailing family in Greenbriar, Tennessee. After his mother passed away, he moved to Florida to be near his son, but returned to Tennessee to be closer to his doctors at MD Anderson and his daughter.
The books are dedicated to families who have Down Syndrome children and the wonderful doctors and nurses at MD Anderson who are helping him fight the fight. Books can be purchased at https://www.hamerhousebooks.com/ or https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B001K8DDTQ.