GEORGE BALL ‘49 Floyd HUMPHRIES
I’ll never forget the first session of ninth-grade French class taught by Mr. Humphries. As soon as the class was seated, he closed the classroo m door and announced to the neophy tes: “Bonjour messieurs, après ce moment on va parler seulment français, pas un mot d’Anglais.” Of course no one underst ood a word, but somehow the message came across, punctuated by small pieces of chalk flung at top speed at any offendin g Anglophone who dared use a word of his native language. Because of him I became fluent and still am. What a marvelo us teacher he was! The ability to speak Fren ch well has added more joy to [my] life than any other academic achievement.
…and What Alumni Say About Their Favorite Andover Teachers R ead more reflections at
Peter Washburn was my math teacher and crew coach, but he went out of his way to be a friend and mentor outside of the classroom. He’d regularly take time to listen to problems that had nothing to do with school or sports, and he, his wife, Kit, and his (many) children welcomed me into their home, any and every time I had something on my mind.
www.andover.edu/magazine. Mike Bragg Tom Regan’61
Bill Bell ’59 Robert Sides Graham Baldwin Scotty Royce It was not the faculty’s command of their subject matter (although surely they had such command), nor was it even their passion for their work that made the most lasting impression on me. Instead, it was their ability to channel the respect that they inspired into simple, life-abiding messages. Robert Sides in geometry: “Stick to that which you know, then go ahead!” Graham Baldwin in religion: “Faith is believing in what you know ain’t so,” which he was quick to point out was attributable to someone other than himself. Most of all, Scotty Royce, admonishing us after he had been nearly trampled when the class-opening bell had rung. He was coming down the hall but was not yet in the classroom when we all availed ourselves of the rule that it was a “free cut”—and therefore OK to bolt—if the teacher was not present at the sound of that bell. He described to us in the next class his disappointment that we had been in such a hurry, and his own experience—enrolled in Columbia through the GI Bill after being seriously wounded in WWII—when sometimes a faculty member would not show up for class. “We would be angry,” he stated. “When you’re paying for it yourself, you look at it quite differently….” With little stories like Mr. Royce’s, some of us boys began, just barely, to grow up a bit.
I am not exag gerating whe n I say it was who taught m Tom Regan e how to write, and for that I ha been very grat ve always eful. I attribute to him my succ few college En ess in the glish courses I took and my gr as a writer du eat success ring my career in law school. think of him, I Whenever I visualize this ve ry tall, very sle challenged yo nder, folliclyung man with the agility of able to go fro a spider, m a standing position on th squatting posit e floor to a ion on his cla ssroom desk height of the without the top of his head from the floor an inch in the changing process.
Richard Pechter ’63 Tom Mikula
forward presentaTom Mikula’s disciplined, straight to be a math mame tions of algebra and geometry led math. Best stor y ol scho jor and eventually to teach high 0, I wrote Mr. 200 in is that when I became a teacher k to say that bac te wro Mikula to tell him that, and he , try as he and r ove And he had taught thousands of us at ble. hum me t Kep ! might, he had no idea who I was
Gail Husted Ehrhardt ’54 Alice Sweeney
Ken Puleo
BILL LANGWORTHY ‘93 PETER WASHBURN
Miss Alice Sweeney was most instrumental in my young life many years ago. When she was teaching Shakespeare and we had to make sense of it, often as not I came up with a much different version than the one intended. However, if I could convince her that my interpretation was valid, she would grade me accordingly. She encouraged freethinking as long as we could convince her that it was possible Shakespeare had more than one meaning. | Winterright, Andover 2010 but it was fun to explore. 28actually She was always
’63 Dwight Stephensham Allan Gilling
Kaitlin Ainsworth ’03 Nina Scott Nina Scott is amazing as much for who she is as what she said in the classroom—unabashedly unique, opinionated and joyful, a thing of wonder to a class of 18-year-olds. She played zydeco music in journalism class. She played matchmaker. Mostly she was adamant that we each find our talents, then figure out how to use them ecstatically and to better the world. As promised, my first book (if I ever write it) will be dedicated to her.
s, please remain Mr. Gillingham said: “Mr. Stephen One day at the end of Latin class, after all the desk his at have I done? I approached after class.” I thought, Oh, damn. Wh . standing there in front of him other guys had left. I still feel as if I’m you might : “My boy, I have the impression that Rather slowly and benignly, he said do you think?” be doing better than you are. What As if hypnotized: “Yes, sir.” t’s all.” Almost dismissively: “Very well. Tha say, you started studying. As the Zen masters and I went directly back to the dorm discich whi er matt sn’t hy or swordsmanship. It doe can do flower arranging or calligrap that fact the and f— to the same place. Latin in itsel nt. pline you choose. They all take you orta imp not s —i verbs require the dative case 45 years later I still remember which me and saw me. What is, is that somebody looked at Latin Composition. Stephens won Andover’s Valpe Prize in