19. Tom, ‘67 and Jean Gilpin

Flames erupt from the original schoolhouse during the devastating fire of 1988.

Tom, ‘67 and Jean Gilpin

Imagine returning from boarding school your first year for Christmas and finding out that your prized baseball card collection was gone, having disappeared into the maw of the Powhatan School Post/Rail annual toy drive? And then finding out that it was your two younger brothers, one the Rails’ co-captains and the other a future co-captain, who had engineered the transfer? Such was the case for Kenneth Gilpin. His brothers John, Powhatan’s original Richard II, and Tom had given their all, and their brother’s too, to help the Rails win the toy drive. Tom went on to become a member of the board and later its president during some of the most difficult and exciting times in Powhatan’s growth. No family has given more to the establishment, maintenance, and quest for excellence of Powhatan School than the Gilpin family.

Tom and Jean Gilpin sat for a thoroughly delightful interview and discussion about Powhatan School and what it has meant to all of us. The interview, characterized by profound insights, rollicking good

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humor, and skeins of personal stories, painted a portrait of a school and a family whose paths and fates have been happily intertwined.

Among the tales, all invested with a wealth of background, Tom related the story of the hiring of Billy Peebles, Powhatan’s seventh Headmaster. First Tom explained the succession order then used by the Board of Trustees: first a trustee became board secretary, then was named vice president before ascending to the presidency. Tom was also co-chair along with Celie Harris of the search committee to find the replacement to out-going Bill Old. Bill McCoy, Nancy Talley, and Carlton Mallory finished out that stellar committee. That committee settled on what at first seemed an unlikely candidate, a first-year admissions director of VES, the Virginia Episcopal School, a recent graduate of Princeton and UVA’s the Darden School of Business, and member of a lively, talented southside Virginia family which owned a regional department store chain, Peebles, eldest son Billy. Tom recalled a fateful meeting in January at The Boar’s Head in Charlottesville in which he and fellow trustee Richard Farland pressed Billy hard to accept Powhatan’s offer to be Headmaster. Billy countered by asking if he could consider the offer thoroughly and reply by mid-February. Both Gilpin and Farland worried, because if Peebles rejected the offer, then the search committee would be late in the year offering the position to a new candidate. Later, while driving to his office at Clarke County Supply, Tom gained clarity, “If Peebles is the one we want, then we should do everything we can to hire him.” In mid-February Tom Gilpin received the call he had been waiting for. Billy Peebles called and said, “Tom, I want to be the next Headmaster of Powhatan School.”

A storied chapter in Powhatan’s history opened.

Billy hit the Powhatan community with a vitality and forwardlooking vision that shook the cobwebs out and revitalized the mission and program of the school. I readily recall the final day of those opening faculty meetings when Billy escorted Don Niemann, whom he had invited, into the library to visit us. An explosion of emotion swept over us. The dismal years since Mr. Niemann’s debilitating accident fell away and instantly were replaced with a future of reconciliation and hope.

Jean Gilpin, also a trustee and board officer, including serving as President, shared that among the highlights of her Powhatan

Seven Powhatan graduates from the Gilpin family, seated around school founder Isabella Tyson Gilpin.” Standing L to R: Lucy M. Gilpin holding Betsy Gilpin, Kenneth N. Gilpin, Jr., Catherine M. Gilpin and M. Tyson Gilpin; Middle Row: Drew G. Faust, Powhatan ‘61 and Isabella Tyson Gilpin; Seated L to R: John M. Gilpin, Powhatan ‘65, Kenneth N. Gilpin, Powhatan ‘63, Thomas T. Gilpin, Powhatan ‘67, Lawrence M. Gilpin, Powhatan ‘70, Donald N. Gilpin, Powhatan ‘64, M. Tyson Gilpin, Jr., Powhatan ‘57

association was a stint as seventh grade Latin teacher as well as being K-8 teacher of French. Her association began with the admission of Tommy, Tom and Jean’s elder son. Coming to Powhatan was no slam dunk decision for the Gilpins in enrolling their child. Tommy had excelled in a wonderful Montessori program in Winchester and was two years ahead for most kids his age in mathematics. In addition, they had just finished a terrific visit to Wakefield School in Huntly, whose kindergarten was taught spectacularly by Bill Lynn’s (the school’s head and founder) wife. Jean recalled saying to Tom on their way home, “How can we not send Tommy to Wakefield.” Fate then presented Carolyn Morgoglione, Powhatan’s legendary third grade teacher, lower school head, and assistant head. Carolyn invited the Gilpins and Tommy to spend the day in third grade since that’s where Tommy would begin mathematics. The Gilpins saw an extraordinary classroom experience full of depth and innovation, complete with one of our remarkable students, Joseph Farland, and his briefcase, which he carried with him constantly, embossed with its dollar-sign insignia

signifying him as the Virginia Company’s treasurer. That visit cinched the Gilpins’ decision.

Their arrival coincided with the arrival of whole language instruction, advocated by visionary Laura Robb, which added sight recognition to the teaching of phonics, the introduction of the writing workshop, and the author’s chair. Already noted for its emphasis on good writing, Powhatan became even more famous for its instruction and practice of the most artistic of the three R’s.

“There is nothing little about our ‘little’ school,” concluded Jean. She and Tom pointed out with my enthusiastic agreement that Powhatan, though comparatively small in numbers, has always been a big-hearted school with a big vista. It is a dynamic learning place where academics and their expression are celebrated. It is a place where Isabella Tyson Gilpin’s original vision of “elementary academic excellence” (to quote Tom Gilpin) thrives. The record of our graduates supports the conclusion that Powhatan students are successful, confident, able, and curious. The record of our faculty showcases numerous appointments to regional and state-wide boards, national committees, and book authorships. The school that devotes so much of its energy to kids being outdoors, learning the arts, and enjoying the benefits of athletics, getting along with your peers, and actively serving your community enjoys an unparalleled reputation for inculcating academic excellence. Human education, particularly the part about liberating and promoting the potential within, is so much more than pencils and paper, books and curriculum.

Tom and Jean Gilpin and their two sons were experiencing Powhatan during some of the most exciting and tumultuous times in Powhatan’s history. Don Niemann’s accident and the resulting upheaval were replaced by the larger question of Powhatan’s size and the catastrophe of the 1988 fire which razed the Old Building of Powhatan to the ground. The destruction of Powhatan’s main facility added unprecedented urgency to its replacement and for the future expansion of the school. Jean Gilpin remarked, “The rebuilding of the school was an amazing activity. The current group of parents has no idea of what went on.” Tom Gilpin, who was the chair of Powhatan’s Building and Grounds committee, had the unenviable task of showing

up every morning to coordinate with the team and workers of the Lantz Corporation – over 100 men. This crew broke ground in March 1989 on two academic wings and the Administrative building for opening in September. They achieved their mission. Meanwhile the school had broken ground and was building the Henkel Gymnasium, bruited about as the largest elementary school gymnasium then current in the state of Virginia which opened at Thanksgiving. Tom Gilpin called this period, “Powhatan’s finest hour.”

Enlarging Powhatan, which meant ultimately adding another section to each grade, hinged on one of the most unlikely scenarios: the success of the Millwood/Boyce water and sewerage system. That system needed to run a line connecting the two towns, and the water authority negotiated running the sewer line along Rte. 723, right across the front of lands owned by Powhatan School. Powhatan’s board negotiated letting the school tie in. That capacity resolved all physical questions about the school’s expansion. Tom recalled that Harry Byrd and he were begging authorities to okay the septic system then in use so the rebuilt school could open two days before it was scheduled to in 1989. That system wheezed, pumped, and trickled along until tying into the Boyce/Millwood solved all problems for future capacity.

We had begun our interview talking about Shakespeare. I have learned over the course of my life just how much Americans have loved and loved to hate the works of William Shakespeare. In the 19th century most Americans associated going to the theatre with seeing one of Shakespeare’s plays. Clarke County was no different. Tom Gilpin related how there was a famous production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream with his father Kenneth and Vaida Boy-Ed staged in the Gilpin estate of Scaleby’s gardens in the 1930’s. Apparently vignettes and scenes from Shakespeare were produced by Blue Ridge Country Day School and its later iteration Powhatan, most of them performed at the Boyce Episcopal Parish Hall. Phil Porterfield recalled being Sir Andrew Aguecheek with Tom’s elder brother Kenneth playing Sir Toby Belch in some scenes from Twelfth Night. Tom remembered performing “Pyramus and Thisbe” with him being Peter Quince, Pim Dillard as Bottom, and Joe Damron as Puck from A Midsummer Night’s Dream when he was in third grade. According to Tom and his brother John, Drew Gilpin Faust, their cousin and former President of Harvard was recalling her memories of

Shakespeare at Powhatan during a recent family visit for the HarvardPrinceton game. The man who ratcheted things up was Don Niemann, who produced a complete version of Richard II in 1965, recalling his very first experience of Shakespeare, portraying of all things a lady-inwaiting, from his boarding school days. John Gilpin shouldered the huge role of Richard. Tom played Prospero in ’67. Both productions were staged at Berryville’s Opera House. A new generation of Gilpins continued the tradition with Tommy playing Don Pedro in Much Ado About Nothing and his brother Billy playing the king in Henry IV, Part I. Tom credits Niemann and his wife Cornelia with moving the Shakespeare tradition at Powhatan to a whole new level, establishing annual fulllength productions which continue through today. Several Powhatan alums starting with John Gilpin and continuing with Steve Monroe and Gia Crovatin have made their careers in acting.

Jean Gilpin is the current President of the Associate Board of Trustees and has also served several terms on the Board of Trustees. She also taught Latin in the seventh grade for a time as well as French teacher for the whole school. A French major, Jean acquitted herself well and served as an example of a talented Powhatan parent, once more, stepping forward to help fill a desperate need which occurs from time to time in the history of a small, rural independent school.

Seventeen-hundred words barely introduce the impact of Tom and Jean Gilpin and the Gilpin family have had over generations on the “starting, continuing, and flourishing” (Tom Gilpin characterizing the arc of the school’s history) of Powhatan School. Just their demeanor and élan telegraph everything you need to know about Powhatan’s past, present, and future. From grandmother Isabella’s vision to daughterin-law Ryan currently teaching third grade, the Gilpin family has interlaced their fortunes with the school they so ably founded and supported. If good humor, civic responsibility, and the liberal arts have a crest, it is theirs.