BrewsterConnections(PDF) - Brewster Academy

HOOPLA
by Matt Hoopes
The Quarter-Century Club
Nine faculty and staff members reflect on 25-plus years
of living, learning, and leading in the Brewster community.
In his introduction to the Academy’s 1975 catalog,
then headmaster David Smith wrote that the
“strength of Brewster Academy is its faculty.” I had
just arrived on campus and was very taken by that
statement. The publication continued by devoting
a full page, containing a portrait photograph and a
detailed resume, of each faculty member – all 15 at
that time. At the time many boarding schools were
judged by the loyalty and longevity of their faculty
As Brewster celebrates the 125th anniversary of
John Brewster’s endowment of the Academy, we
pay tribute to faculty and staff members who have
contributed their talents for at least one fifth of that
time span. Their recollections offer reminders of how
much the school has grown and changed over the
past quarter-century. They also point out, modestly,
each in his or her way, how they helped make the
school what it is today.
and staff. Alumni often returned to a school primarily
to seek out a former teacher, introduce their spouse,
and playfully warn them that their son or daughter
would soon be arriving to disrupt their classroom.
Matt Hoopes was a faculty member from 1975 to 1996. During this time he and his journalism students founded
The Brewster Browser and the Outcroppings literary magazine. Since his “retirement” from the classroom in
1996, Hoopes has worked as the alumni correspondent from his hilltop banana farm on the island of Eleuthera,
The Bahamas, helping to keep the alumni connection alive. In each issue he brings life-after-Brewster stories to
the pages of his Hoopla column.
Do you have your copy of The Brewster Story: A Definitive History
of Brewster Academy by Robert and Shirley Richardson?
Order online: www.brewsteracademy.org/thebrewsterstory
28 BrewsterConnections – Spring 2012