Circiter | Featured on Campus THE 2011 DISTINGUISHED GROTONIAN AWARD Richard B. Commons, Headmaster:
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Malcolm Peabody ’46, the 2011 recipient of the Distinguished Grotonian Award, addresses reunion alumni.
“When the president arrived in his open touring car, the Rector and Grannie were standing at the top of the steps of their house to receive him properly, but as Roosevelt maneuvered his paralytic legs to get out, a shot of terrible pain crossed his face and Grannie, forgetting all decorum, floated down the steps, embraced him, and exclaimed: ‘Franklin—dear boy.’”
8 | Quarterly Fall 2011
t is my privilege to present the next award. The Distinguished Grotonian Award recognizes graduates whose lives of distinguished service reflect the values of Groton School. Today, it is my great honor to present the 2011 Distinguished Grotonian award to Malcolm Endicott Peabody, Jr., a member of the Form of 1946. Mike graduated from Groton cum laude, went on to Harvard and from there to Harvard Business School. After business school, Mike devoted himself not to business but to military service in the Air Force and then to government service as executive secretary of the New York State Commission for Human Rights and the New York State Commission Against Discrimination. Back in Massachusetts, Mike chaired the governor’s committees on civil rights and low-income housing before becoming the civil rights advisor to the governor. He then spent four years serving in the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. In the midst of all of this illustrious service, Mike ran for Congress in 1968, started Peabody Corporation, the real estate development business he has run for nearly 40 years, and chaired the board of trustees of the Washington International School for more than a decade. In 1995, Mike founded an organization called FOCUS, an acronym for Friends of Choice in Urban Schools, which promotes school reform in the District of Columbia through the development of high-quality charter schools. In the last 16 years, under Mike’s direction, FOCUS has reached more than 28,000 students in the District as the primary advocate for the establishment of 57 charter schools, accounting for 38 percent of all public schools in Washington, D.C. It’s no overstatement to say that Mike Peabody and FOCUS have dramatically altered and improved public education in the nation’s capital. Educational entrepreneurship, service, and standing up against injustice run in the family. Mike is the grandson of Reverend Endicott Peabody, founder of Groton School, and the son of the Right Reverend Malcolm Peabody 1907, who was bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New York, and Mary Elizabeth Peabody, who gained national attention in 1964 when, at the age of 72, she was jailed for protesting for civil rights in Florida. I was told last night that her response was to ask, “And what does one wear to jail?” Mike and his wife, Pamela, have been married for 52 years, live in Washington, D.C., and have two children, Carter and Payson ’82. Please join me now in welcoming to the podium this year’s recipient of Groton’s highest honor, the Distinguished Grotonian Award, Malcolm Endicott Peabody.
Malcolm Endicott Peabody’s ’46 (upon accepting the award):
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’ll confess I am abashed to receive this honor in front of my formmates, whom I’m sure were surprised to see the Mike Peabody they knew at school deemed distinguished at anything. I’ll admit I was as surprised as they were. But I’m pleased not to see the faces out there of any of my former masters, who I’m guessing would be registering not only surprise but disbelief since I’ve noted opinions of masters tend to be set in stone when you graduate. My grandmother, the Rector’s wife, was aware of this frozen opinion syndrome and fearful that it might mar the visit in 1938 of a really distinguished Grotonian, President Franklin Roosevelt, one who had less than a stellar career when at School. As a precaution, Grannie asked each of his masters to show proper respect to Roosevelt by addressing him as Mr. President, not Franklin, or even “Boy.” Sadly there was one who