M e r c e r s b u r g m a g a z i n e s u mm e r 2 0 1 3
55
About John Prentiss Completed bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Colorado State University before earning a doctorate of veterinary medicine from Colorado State’s School of Veterinary Medicine Opened a small animal practice in the Boston area; in 1978, purchased Bulger Animal Hospital and established what today is the InTown Veterinary Group network of hospitals, which includes facilities in Massachusetts and New Hampshire Elected to Mercersburg’s Board of Regents in 1990; serves as chair of the Buildings & Grounds Committee and was also a Major Gifts Committee co-chairman for the school’s Mightily Onward campaign Along with fellow Regent Bill Zimmerman ’67, funded restoration of the school’s PrentissZimmerman Quadrangle in 2009; his gift was in honor of his wife, Carol, and mother, Jeanne Palmer Prentiss Serves as a member of the E.E. Ford Foundation’s board of directors, a group chaired by former Mercersburg headmaster Walter Burgin ’53 Part of four generations of his family to attend Mercersburg; along with his grandfather, other alumni family members include his father (the late George ’39), uncle (Medary ’43), son (Ames ’89), and daughter (Kimball ’92)
deluge of pennies down the stone aisle. In my three-year stint we never succeeded in crumbling the bearer to his knees, but our cumulative laughter and pleasure with the mere thought certainly brought us to our own. “Troughing” was another group prank that fostered collaboration, hand-eye coordination, and a great sense of accomplished pride. A “new boy” was selected as the lucky recipient of a wet lap—and with this selection, the game was on. The entire cohort at the table—minus the unknowing recipient— folded up the overhanging edges of the stiffly starched tablecloth, carefully negotiating at least three 90-degree corners and effectively forming a watertight trough. Next came the question: water or milk? And lastly, the attention of the (un)lucky participant was momentarily diverted as the trough was filled with an inevitable tsunami of liquid. The main difficulty in the task was to ensure that the centripetal forces kept the liquid moving around the table into the fourth—and unfolded— corner and into the lap of the chosen one. One spastic move and the joke was (quite
literally) on you. Needless to say, this was attempted only on nights when faculty attendance at the evening meal was dismal. Once again, nearly 50 years later, Mercersburg has welcomed me for my second stint at the Academy, this time as a Regent. Mercersburg is no longer exactly the place that I remember from the 1960s. Time does indeed change all, or at least a lot, and Mercersburg has certainly changed quite a bit over the years. Our mission, and our great hope as Regents, is to thoughtfully breed change that allows Mercersburg to continue to meet, and exceed, the needs and expectations of our students and their parents. Our goal has been to institute change that would hurdle Mercersburg from a good school to a great institution, all the while maintaining its uniquely special sense of place. To complete this mission, we were armed with new leadership, a bold and aggressive strategic plan, and an insurgence of capable friends and alumni to help orchestrate and execute our charge. Today, when I look across campus and chronicle the changes in my mind, I see
a school that is now coed. I see married faculty with young children enlivening the campus landscape. I see experiential learning around a Harkness table replacing unidirectional lecturing. I see “textbooks” now written by Mercersburg teachers on iPads. I see new buildings and renovations of old ones to house and foster all of these changes. Mostly, however, I see the very same looks of self-realized potential on the faces of the students and pride among the faculty, even if their collective composition has changed. I hear the same hums of community and silent pauses of possibility, even if in programs or buildings or on landscapes that are new and different. I meet with students and I can practically taste their own developing senses of self and place. Above all, I am quietly amazed and enormously grateful that the spirit of this special place has remained intact and that part of this spirit is annually captured and voiced in the Step Songs—the very same ones that Grandfather continued to sing until the last time we parted.