KENT—Tales from the past at South Kent School (SKS) were affectionately shared recently during a “People and Places of Kent” session at the Kent Senior Center on Wednesday, Jan. 15.
SKS historian Marge Smith led the program. The daughter of a former SKS teacher, she grew up on campus and is currently finishing a book chronicling the school’s first century.
Many of the others in the room were former students and recalled the ingenuity of the school’s founders in meeting the challenge of establishing the private school and building its infrastructure.
The school’s motto, “Simplicity of life, Self-reliance, and Directness of purpose,” has been epitomized again and again over the decades by both the school’s leaders and its students, according to Smith.
In her history, she recounts that the school was established in 1923, by two alumni of Kent School, Samuel Bartlett and Richard Cuyler, on the former Straight farm.
The 24 boys who arrived there in September 1923 must have wondered what their parents were thinking. According to Smith, “Dinner consisted of scrambled eggs cooked by the headmaster, and was followed by the first chapel service, held in the classroom, during which they sang, ‘The Son of God Goes Forth to War.’
“The altar was a packing box topped with a cross made of a couple of sticks, and the congregation was made up of two masters, the housemother and three boys who knelt on the floor between the desks,” she wrote in her history.
The following morning, the students were not hard at their studies—instead they were given shovels and rakes and put to work alongside the masters, cleaning the yard, clearing away lumber and helping to raise the flagpole.
Classes would have been hard to hold as the classroom was full of plumbing supplies and there were no books at that time.
“Boy Power,” a concept that continues through today, was born that September and proved to be a necessity for the fledgling school with its limited capital reserves.
The boys did everything from planting and harvesting crops to raking leaves, hauling bricks for the new chapel and driving the old snowmobile.
As rocky as the first days may have been, it was the start of a long-standing tradition at the school where each student is given a job to serve the school community in the day-to-day function of the school.
Jobs today range from dishwashing, to collecting recycling, to leadership opportunities, all instilling a sense of responsibility in the students.
The can-do ethos extended well beyond the first decades of the school’s development and as late as the 1960s the school was still implementing a “use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without” ethos.
Those gathered at the senior center shared choice stories of the frugality of the early years.
Smith told of business manager Sam Woodward, who earned the sobriquet “the wiley business manager” for his sharp dealings in buying second-hand items needed for the campus.
At one point, a silo was needed to store the crops grown to feed the students.
“The whole ethos on campus is simplicity of life,” Smith said. “They needed a silo, so the ‘wiley business manager’ bought a used silo and had it transported to the campus. They had a foundation for it, but when they moved it from the truck to the platform, the cable holding it snapped and the whole thing came apart. Sam Woodward ruefully admitted he might have purchased a used cable.”
Smith said after the recent “People and Places of Kent” program that she discovered a picture of Bill Metty, a jack of all trades, and some men moving a silo. Smith feels there is a strong possibility this was the ill-fated structure.
Another time, Woodward was more successful, Smith recalled. He located and purchased an abandoned Army barracks in Bath, Maine. Some of the students helped to dismantle it and transport it back to the campus where they worked alongside contractors to reassemble it as faculty housing.
“It wasn’t supposed to last too long, but it is still there today,” Smith told her audience.
She said the first chapel was in the basement of an old building. “There was a tiny little room in the basement, next to the school laundry,” she recounted. “Fr. Kemmis quipped that it was ‘cleanliness next to Godliness.'”
“Then they built the chapel that now stands using rejected bricks that Sam Woodward found somewhere. You can see that they are rougher than most bricks. South Kent has always used the kids to do work. They helped to build the chapel, carrying hods of bricks and mixing cement. It’s different today, but they still do a good bit of work.”
Another example of ingenuity surfaced during the session.
It was recalled that Bill Gawel, Class of ’64, and fellow students Nick Perrone, Bill Case, Tom Krake, and Roger Peet solved the problem of the rutted ice on Hatch Pond that annoyed hockey players of that era.
The young men got two 55-gallon drums that were rigged up on a trailer. The tanks were connected to a perforated pipe and filled with hot water. The students pulled the trailer around Hatch Pond behind an old Jeep, releasing the water to melt the surface, which quickly froze into a smooth sheet of ice.
“There must have been Zambonis back then,” Smith said after the meeting, noting that Gawel went by the nickname Goose and the contraption was call the “Gooserone,” probably a combination of his nickname and Perrone’s last name.
Richard Vreeland, Class of ’68, recalled that he was issued a broom and dustpan and his job for the year was to sweep the building twice a day. “If you didn’t do a good job, you had to excuse yourself from dessert and go do it again,” he said.
The alums in the room were filled with fond memories as they remembered their days at the school. “I could not be prouder than to be a graduate of South Kent,” said Vreeland.
Today, South Kent School is far from the strictures of the past, but it remains steadfast in its commitment to produce students who excel academically, develop strong moral character and contribute meaningfully to society. It has earned accolades for both its academic and sports programs.
