42°27′10.94″N 73°22′58.49″W / 42.4530389°N 73.3829139°W / 42.4530389; -73.3829139

Darrow School is a co-educational college-preparatory school for boarding and day students in grades 9-12 and PG (post-graduate). It is located in New Lebanon, New York.

History

Darrow opened in the fall of 1932 as the Lebanon School for Boys. In 1938 the president Charles S. Haight died, and C. Lambert Heyniger purchased the school, becoming its headmaster and treasurer. Heyniger was a Princeton alumnus who had taught as a missionary in China and then pursued graduate study at Columbia University before joining General Motors. After buying the school he renamed it in the Shaker tradition, after a family prominent among the religious colony. Heyniger redesigned parts of the campus and reorganized personnel and policy.^[1]

In 1963, three Darrow students set a fire and destroyed the century-old dining hall and fire leveled the 156-year-old gymnasium. Both fires threatened dormitories housing 175 pupils. The boys had hoped school officials would send all the pupils home until repairs were made.^[2]

Campus

The campus is situated on the original site of the Mount Lebanon Shaker Village, a National Historic Landmark.^[3] It spans over 365 acres of land, with 26 buildings, tennis courts, playing fields, ponds, orchards, pastures, marshlands, and a vast forest.

Student body

The school currently enrolls 110 students from across the United States and countries such as Dominica, China, United Arab Emirates, Vietnam, and South Korea.

Athletics

Student participate in a number of competitive and non-competitive sports:^[4]

Traditions

The strong visual traces of Shaker austerity stand in contrast with the modern and less conventional morés of some affluent students raised in such different moral settings. In an interview, teacher Ed Noggle stated that a fascination with ghosts resulted. "These young people," Noggle says, "are very much of this world, very sensual, sexual beings. It has always been a matter of 'Ha, ha, what would the Shakers do if they could see all this? They'd roll over in their graves.'"^[5]

Notable alumni

• Charles "Pete" Conrad, Jr., Apollo 12 commander and third man to walk on the Moon, Class of 1949
• Chris "Mad Dog" Russo, radio personality, Class of 1978
• Sam Harper, screenwriter of Cheaper by the Dozen and Cheaper by the Dozen 2. Class of 1974
• August François von Finck, German businessman
• Christopher Lloyd, actor
• William H. Hudnut III, mayor of Indianapolis
• Donald Cushing McGraw, Jr., businessman, Class of 1943

References

External links

• Official website