Robert Francis O'Keefe arrived as principal of Dilworth Traditional Academy in 1998, and by the time he left the elementary school in Highland Park eight years later, it was anything but traditional.

For starters, he began having a band of student drummers signal the start of each school day. He recruited local artists and musicians to supplement regular classroom teaching. He set aside Tuesday afternoons for students to pursue out-of-the-box coursework such as sign language and puppet-making instead of the basic curriculum.

And under its new name as the Dilworth Traditional Academy for Arts and Humanities, it became a rare school that erased the gap between black and white students in test performance.

Part of his legacy, three years after leaving the school, is its fun, thriving atmosphere for 300-plus students in preschool through fifth grade.

The sunny, wry educator died last Friday of cancer at his home in Ross. He was 58, and had been diagnosed with multiple myeloma shortly after his retirement in 2006.

Mr. O'Keefe had worked in various teaching and administrative positions for the school district since 1973. During his tenure at Dilworth, the use of the magnet school by neighborhood parents in Highland Park grew as word spread of his ambitious, active approaches.

"He raised the bar for everyone -- for his staff, for the Pittsburgh Public Schools, for the expectations of students," said Tania Grubbs, who has had two children at the school. "One thing he was really conscious of was the need for kids to find an intrinsic motivation, something that makes them want to learn and reach higher."

Mr. O'Keefe grew up in Brighton Heights, attending North Catholic High School and graduating from Duquesne University with a bachelor's degree in education in 1972. He spent much of the 1970s and '80s as an English teacher and team leader at Prospect Middle School in Mount Washington.

He then became a teacher and program assistant at the Options Center, an alternative school in Lawrenceville for students with troubles at their own schools. He eventually took on administrative duties there, which altered his career path. Mr. O'Keefe, who obtained two master's degrees in education from Duquesne and Carlow, became acting dean of students at Brashear High School in February 1998 and was assigned to run Dilworth the next fall.

The elementary school already had an emphasis on discipline, as one of the first city schools to adopt use of uniforms, but Mr. O'Keefe wanted to do more to broaden students' minds. He urged teachers to develop their own specialties and work their personal interests into the curriculum.

When he learned of Stephanie Hornick's background in dance, for example, he encouraged the language arts teacher to begin teaching that to students as well.

"He just had a way about him that you knew he meant business, but he did it in such a nurturing way," Ms. Hornick said. "He always told everybody what a great job they were doing, and everybody knew he expected a lot from us. When you expect people to be great and do great things, that's what you get."

Though he was no artist or musician himself, he saw those pursuits and special writing programs as a way to invigorate students. His development of those emphases at Dilworth led the Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council to give him its Arts Educator Award in 2007.

"He really believed that through the arts you could expand the mind and enrich the educational experience," said his wife, Mary Ellen, whom he met when they were both Duquesne students. "He didn't always go with what's standard -- he found ways to expand things."

Mr. O'Keefe would gather the entire school for assembly in the auditorium each morning, making announcements after the daily drumming ended. He'd lead the students in singing "America the Beautiful" or another anthem. At home, his musical taste ran to old-timers like Paul Robeson and Bing Crosby, played on LPs on one of his five turntables.

He was a collector of all kinds of trinkets from flea markets and other expeditions, and statues, rocks and other items filled his den along with the hundreds of old record albums.

He retired from the school district when still healthy -- wanting to leave, his wife said, before he stopped loving the job -- but the district called him back in fall of 2006 as a temporary principal at Woolslair K-5 in Lawrenceville.

"We knew he would take the role seriously, but that because of his easy-going manner, the staff would respond in a positive way to him," said Barbara Rudiak, assistant superintendent for K-5 schools. She said he had shown his ability at Dilworth to engage staff and parents alike in a vision for what a school should be.

In addition to his wife, Mr. O'Keefe is survived by three sons, Robert P. of Chicago, Daniel F. of New York City and Sean T. of Ross; a daughter, Shannon E. O'Shaughnessy of New Haven, Conn.; his parents, Robert J. and Nora Lynch O'Keefe of Ross; three sisters, Colleen Wozniak and Mary Greer, both of Ross, and Kathleen Cieply of Franklin Park; one brother, David O'Keefe of McCandless; and one grandson.

Arrangements were by John A. Freyvogel Sons.