MERCERSBURG MAGAZINE FALL 2015
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Field House to be Named for Douglas Hale Mercersburg held an October groundbreaking ceremony to mark the official start of construction on the Hale Field House, which is named in honor of Head of School Douglas Hale and will be located immediately to the north of Nolde Gymnasium. Speakers during the ceremony included Hale, Board of Regents President David Frantz ’60, Board President Emerita Denise Dupré ’76, and Board member and Daring to Lead Campaign Co-Vice Chair Stacie Rice Lissette ’85 and her husband, Dylan. Anticipated construction time is approximately 12 months on the $12 million, 64,000-square-foot facility, which will include a 200-meter, six-lane, competitionlevel indoor track with an infield for field events that can be converted to other competition and/or practice space. “I am deeply touched by this incredibly thoughtful and kind gesture, and I am honored and grateful that this building will bear my name,” said Hale, who captained the basketball team as an undergraduate at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and is in his 19th and final year as Mercersburg’s head of school; he is retiring at the close of the 2015–2016 academic year. “This building, when finished, will be an amazing asset to our school community,” he continued. “And this facility will be all about you, the students. It will be used—likely on a daily basis—by every student in our school.” “We have benefited in extraordinary ways from Doug’s service to Mercersburg and his devotion to our students, faculty, staff, alumni, and parents,” Stacie Rice Lissette said. “As we honor the past and look to the future, we know that his considerable contributions have helped position our school for even better days.”
Douglas and Peggy Hale with a sign for the new Hale Field House
Hale is just the sixth head of school in Mercersburg’s 123 years as a college preparatory school. He came to Mercersburg in 1997 after 24 years at Baylor School in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where he was a teacher, associate headmaster, and eventually headmaster. As a student-athlete at UT Chattanooga, he earned the school’s Dayle May Award as the varsity athlete with the highest academic average. The groundbreaking ceremony was moved indoors due to inclement weather,
which Lissette offered in her remarks as illustrating the need for the field house. “On a day like this [with rain], you’ll be practicing in this new space,” she told the assembled students, which drew laughter and applause. “So in a way, the weather helped us out today.” Construction of the field house is a key capital priority of Mercersburg’s $300million Daring to Lead Campaign. For more information on the Campaign, visit www. mercersburg.edu/daringtolead.
The groundbreaking featured (from left) Board of Regents President David Frantz ’60, John Prentiss ’65, Carol Prentiss, Stacie Rice Lissette ’85, Dylan Lissette, Board President Emerita Denise Dupré ’76, Head of School Douglas Hale, Peggy Hale, Jeff Reeder, and Gail Reeder