In response to a recent alumni/ae mailing, we received a hand-written note from the daughter of Evelyn (Bassett) Lewis '32 saying, "Evelyn Lewis passed away 12/17/09. She was very proud of Proctor Academy, and was recently honored (a year ago) as the oldest alumni at the reunion." Indeed, it was my honor to introduce Evelyn to the school community in an assembly eighteen months ago.

 

In a moment charged with emotion, 300 teenagers sprang to their feet with an ovation for a woman who graduated 77 years before.

 

Perhaps some members of this year's senior class will be so honored at a reunion in 2087! When Salisbury, NH native Evelyn Bassett enrolled at Proctor in 1928, she joined the last class to include women until 1971. And the class included several remarkable women, including the lovely Arline (Andrews) Lovejoy and her spunky sister, Marian Andrews Hinkley whom I have had the pleasure of meeting on many occasions. They attended a school with 30% of today's population, including a Lower School!



This brings me to the topic of image archiving. The proliferation of digital photography in recent years has created an issue every school and college must address: how do we sort, categorize and store tens of thousands of images annually?

Even before the digital revolution, however, we struggled with archived photos. Now, technology comes to the rescue. With the help and inspiration of Travis Warren '91 and our friends at Whipplehill, we are making high-quality scans of old prints available to all on Flickr via a photostream called Proctorarchives. Here's the brilliant part: alumni (or anyone) can tag the images, identifying people we can not currently name!

 

The process of scanning hundreds of loose photographs is tedious, but--at last--the images are digitized in high quality. This image captures a busy afternoon on Proctor Pond after a stream was dammed to create a rink. "Silo Hill" in the background is the site of Farrell Fieldhouse today. The so-called silo (visible in back) was actually the remains of the Carr Estate's brick water tower. Farrell Field has not yet been created.

 

For several years, boys embraced spring by racing rowboats and unrigged sailboats down the Blackwater River. These guys skied to the event. But when? And who are they? Notice that the boat they're boarding is identical to the one (c. 1942) on display in the atrium of the Learning Center.

 

Headmaster Lyle Farrell was a conservative patriot, and the news that America's first man in space (May 5, 1961) had once spent a summer building a boat at Proctor's woodshop was enough to prompt this dedication of the Alan Shepard Boat House, May 12, 1962. How dominant Cary House was until April 11, 1977!

 

We hope that you enjoy Proctor's rapidly growing presence on Flickr and other social media, and that alumni appreciate the image archive!