* Dave Briggs Presentation Speech (8:00 am, Wednesday June 15, 2011)

The Delevan E. Whaley Award for Excellence in Teaching at Hartford High School

Ray Stanford '63 Makes Award Presentation to Paul Keane

Ray Stanford '63, Byron Hathorn '67, Dave Briggs '64, Paul Keane

Good morning. We are here to relate a story and make an announcement we think you will find interesting and rather unique. We on this stage represent several classes of Hartford High School graduating in the 1960’s: Ray Stanford ’63, Dave Briggs ’64, and Byron Hathorn ’67.

Ray is a former Peace Corps Volunteer and now a Property Manager. Byron is a Vietnam Vet and now Builder-Developer. He is also one of the top Master ski racers in the country. I’m a former Army Engineer Officer and now an Innkeeper. We point these things out just to show what can happen down the road from your Hartford days.

Along with an impressive number of others from our era we have come to realize something special we all hold in common. That thing is the enduring positive impact of a certain teacher from our Hartford High School days. This teacher taught us English but also helped our generation start a Ski Club and out of that the revival of a long dormant Hartford Ski Team.

The teacher’s name is Delevan E. Whaley, Jr. Today he resides in retirement in Portland, Maine. Upon leaving Hartford we lost touch with him except for a few chance contacts with classmates who would report in on him. Although those occurrences were rare and not often communicated, the impact of this man’s teaching kept being recalled at reunions, in letters and in numerous conversations over the decades. Even though our world had been turned upside down and disrupted by the war in Vietnam and we became more mobile and out of touch, the gifts brought to us by Mr. Whaley factored in our personal and intellectual development. His lessons remained prevalent in our thinking. This teacher had made a truly remarkable difference!

Prior to his days at Hartford High School Mr. Whaley had served and fought as a ski trooper with the famous 10th Mountain Division in Italy in WWII. He attained his BA degree in English at Syracuse University.

The hallmarks of his legacy with us were: exposure to great literature, the encouragement to express ourselves in writing, a sense of humor and playfulness, the optimism to form a ski club and team, the courage to speak truth to power and the importance of mutual respect between teacher and pupil.

A few years ago, thanks to the miracle of the internet and e-mail, it was confirmed that Mr. Whaley remained a legendary figure in the eyes of many people for all the great contributions he had made to our lives. Off and on, people spoke of trying to find him and to re-connect. This past spring, after well over 40 years, that idea finally came to fruition in the form of a reunion featuring the great man himself. He was greeted here in White River Junction by about 25 HHS grads from not only here in the Upper Valley but the whole country including Nebraska and California.

In the spirit of all he taught us we named our ad hoc reunion group “The Live Poets Society” reflective of the Robin Williams Movie “Dead Poets Society”. Mr. Whaley himself was quick to express how gratified he was by the name since he was in fact still alive after all. And he readily agreed to attend our reunion. The reunion featured an afternoon of reading poetry and literary pieces. Mr. Whaley read from his volumes of poems written over the years and we, his students, brought forth our own work.

During the time leading up to this extraordinary reunion event we further realized that amazing teachers, although not common enough to be taken for granted, do come along at a steady pace and they deserve to be recognized; their gifts to all of us are formidable. Indeed our society is buttressed by excellence in teaching. With that we decided it would be fitting to begin an award that would call for truly excellent teachers to be confirmed in public. And so we are here today to make an announcement. The Live Poets Society, so-called, will convene with the administration of Hartford High School to develop appropriate criteria and standards for an award to be called The Delevan E. Whaley, Jr. Award for Excellence in Teaching at Hartford High School. We will present HHS with a plaque which can hang in the hallowed halls of our alma mater with honored names posted for all to see.

We therefore encourage faculty, administrators and students to nominate those who impress with their Excellence in Teaching for recognition in the name of Mr. Delevan E. Whaley, Jr. We would remind all to not limit nominations to current members of the faculty but to past ones as well. Indeed we bring proof that greatness is long remembered and valued and therein lies its true measure.

To begin on this path of recognition we told the administration we would like to call for the nomination of a teacher to be the first to receive this award (and to meet Mr. Whaley himself insofar as he was happily still alive). While retaining the highest standards of excellence to properly honor Mr. Whaley we also told them about Mr. Whaley, his style, his substance and how we had been so thoroughly enriched by him. Accordingly we are here today to not only inaugurate the award but to name publicly the first ever recipient.

After having received the nomination and after having introduced this person to Mr. Whaley we are delighted in the choice on all counts. Today we would like him to come forth to receive our congratulations and your applause for his excellence in teaching.

The First Delevan E. Whaley Award for Excellence in Teaching at Hartford High is therefore, hereby, made to: Mr. Paul Keane.

By: The Live Poets Society

June 15, 2011 Hartford High School White River Junction, Vermont

__________________________________________

Twenty-five Years as a Vermont English Teacher

Beneatha in A Raisin in the Sun, Hartford High School, 2011

Sargeant Pepper (every Halloween at HHS from 1987-2011)

Editing student papers at HHS, circa 1995

Lord of a Renaissance Feast, Whitcomb High School, 1986-87

Letter from Former Student, Ryan Peterson '95

(posted with his permission)

Note: "TER" refers to "Thesis / Exposition / Recapitulation" essay style.

* The Valley News Article, 5/10/11

NOTE: Text can be enlarged with a left click of the mouse or by holding the Ctrl button down and pressing (+)

* Inaugural Program: Live Poets Society

The old Hartford High School building and the young Delavan E. Whaley, Jr.

* Live Poets Society Honors Delavan "Ned" Whaley, Inspiring Teacher

The Live Poets Society

Presents

Special Guest
Mr. Delevan E. “Ned” Whaley

Come and join this special reunion with a Teacher for the Ages, our own Delevan “Ned” Whaley who is still more reverently referred to as “Mr. Whaley”.

Mr. Whaley will be coming to the Upper Valley for this special event - Saturday May 7th. We have arranged this occasion to honor him and to enjoy his presence once again.

This will be a rare opportunity to meet old friends and classmates and to share some time with this truly memorable educator and poet.

Saturday May 7, 2011
Hotel Coolidge
White River Junction, Vermont

Program –

Saturday May 7, 2011
12:30 pm - Lunch with the Honored Guest
Break - to rest or take a renewed look at WRJ and/or the Upper Valley scene
4:00 pm - Poetry Readings from Ned’s Work and others
Break
6:30 pm - Social Time and Dinner
Over Dessert - A Tribute to Mr. Whaley
Presentations of Stories and Memories

Sunday May 8, 2011
8:30 am Brunch and Departure

* Officers – Self Ordained – One Year Terms
• Bob Young, HHS ‘63 President
• Jack Young, HHS ‘63 Vice President
• Dave Briggs, HHS ‘64 Secretary
• Jim Woods, HHS ’62 Sgt-at-Arms

* Reading of Poems by Mr. Whaley and HHS Alumni at Main Street Museum, 4 PM

(The Young Brothers on Home Turf)

(Memorial Maple for Matthew Woods at HMMS)

Alumni read many of their own poems and several poems by Mr. Whaley. We won't soon forget the delightful poem about the "Pink House" blushing at Hartland Four Corners authored by an HHS alumna.

Four generations of inspirational teachers attended this event:


Delavan "Ned" Whaley,


Bob and Pat Taylor,


Bob Potter,


and Ben Gardner.





















MAIN STREET MUSEUM (The old firehouse)




Our Dynamic Mr. Whaley

by Sally Marcotte ‘63
Charter Member LPS


To think, to take in ideas so brilliantly presented
As if you have actually heard the sound
Of prolific authors, poets, playwrights cemented
In our newly developed thoughts and ideas
Each day, each book, each title, each think piece
Led us to days thereafter in various analytical endeavors
Each year holds a reminder of those inspirations & challenges
Each season reaps benefits abounding in intellectual strength
Shakespeare, Socrates, Whitman, Thoreau, Melville, Frost
All brought to life & to mind by your knowledge, by your enactment
Some authors banned, some parents objected though in class
You continued to inspire, entertain, challenge, & to teach the lesson
Which endures------ that which is to stretch our minds
















Kathy Young, wife of Bob, wrote this following the first meeting of Live Poets Society at the Coolidge Hotel, May 7, 2011


Reflections

by Kathy Young

I’ve known Ned Whaley for long about
Forty five years now … Well,
At least the Legend, and with
Every telling, the story grew
Like watered grass in springtime
Wet with morning dew.

A quiet man seemed not his lot
But poet bard who dared
Project his love of words
And history rhyme on a
Classroom unawares …
Leaving footprints long behind.

Of what I knew were moldy
Books with well-worn pages—
Dog-eared, marked, underlined
And frayed.

All placed lovingly in a satchel
Tugged from place to place
Around the world and back
Again without a face.

A visage was not a need,
For in those books were
Words of life and love that
Pointed to a man of some esteem
Somehow lost in times long deeds.

Then after years of writing, too,
Bob dedicated his book to you
Once again without a face.
Posthumously, he said his grace –
And I smiled knowing that

The words he said could easily have raised the dead.
Those words, seeded in his heart
By an English teacher’s art of caring.

And today we honor you Ned Whaley
For the things you do and did so
Many years gone past.
By placing in a class deep love
Of words and letters that last
Forever in those young and old
And this one too, who sees your
Face at Last and blesses you!



"Eeek! It's Pink"

Shelia Santaw Cameron

"You just passed by the pink house in Hartland today.
Oh my, I once stood proud - my clapboards white and pristine, my shutters dark green....
Reduced now to looking like a Neapolitan ice cream sandwich - the strawberry part!

I'm so embarrassed! While the trees around me - my faithful friends growing taller,
fuller, their glorious green shading me...hiding my shame...and in Fall dressed in
fabulous foliage....I can only blush... pink!

I want to be a tree again or perhaps someone else will buy me.

The small summerhouse at my side - entangled now in hedge and vine - once a young girl's envy...
such a perfect dollhouse it would be....

There is nothing proud about being pink when once I was white clapboard and green shutters...
Facing the Green at Hartland Four Corners."

Sheila Santaw Cameron
HHS Class of '64






As Read by Bob Young’s wife Kathy at the conclusion of the poetry reading session of the first meeting of the Live Poet’s Society Gathering. In memory of Sue and all our classmates who have left us or were not able to attend.

After the 35th Reunion

by Sue Rising

I saw myself in the mirror this morning:
Smile lines with echoes and echoes with echoes.
Eyes feathered, squinting into long-gone sunshine.
Shoulders heavy, breasts do not so certain anymore.
My hair climbing down my back like
Silver ivy on an old building.
Surprise! Inside I’m eighteen and could play soccer,
Jog up that hill, stay up all night – if I wanted to.

“Remember the Swallows?” Jane asked at reunion.
“Sure, I said. And I do. I really do.
I don’t know if my memory is the same –
Probably her’s is at the Young Twins’ barn.
I recall she and Bob liked each other
While Jack and I shared wary respect.
Not the same thing at all.
Jane and Bob had the better of it, I think.

But I remember the swallows, the barns, the flowers.
I recall fish caught and fires sat around.
I can re-tell stories heard ‘way back then and
See people and places as clear as ice in February
And smell and touch and taste it all so fine.
Sometimes I can remember the where and the when,
But mostly, mostly, it’s the who and the what that lingers
Like wisps of silver hair snagged by the wind.

* * First Delavan E. Whaley, Jr. Award Given to Current HHS Teacher (1987-present)

Dave Briggs (HHS '64) presents the first Whaley Award to Paul Keane at the Main Street Museum ceremony, White River Junction, Vermont.




The happy recipient, blushing (5/7/11).

(Photos, courtesy of Bob Potter.)

* Dinner, Remembrances, and Slide Shows with Mr. Whaley at the Hotel Coolidge

* Senator/Representative Dick McCormack, Noted Folksinger, Sings and Recites Poetry after Dinner

What a wonderful coincidence was Dick's presence at this event since I taught his son, Noah, at Whitcomb High School in 1986!

* Mr. Whaley (10th Mountain Divsion, Po Valley WW II) forms Hartford Ski Team

Note: Mr. Whaley was wounded in the Po Valley operation, spent time in an Italian hospital in a full body cast, and returned to the U.S. in a leg cast.

* Inspired by Mr. Whaley, Bob Young (Class of ' 61) Publishes Book on Thoreau

* The Nash Rambler by Dave Briggs

The Nash Rambler

by David Briggs HHS ‘64

Live Poets Society Dinner Meeting / Mr. Whaley’s Appreciation Night
May 7, 2011 / Hotel Coolidge / White River Junction, Vermont

My high school English teacher was a guy named Delevan E. Whaley, Jr. What a cool name. His wife and colleagues called him “Ned”. We called him Mr. Whaley. Respect for authority and teachers had not been challenged so much then as in the years since. Behind his back we called him “Whaley” but never anything less respectful than that.

We came to know him as a skier. He had taken the initiative to start a ski club and after that an official ski team. In the course of a year or two the team was even approved to award us varsity “Letters” for competing. Our region was rich in ski history being close to Dartmouth College and so many related pioneers of the sport. The first ski tow in America was established in the neighboring town of Woodstock, Vermont in the 1930’s. Hard to believe it now in the year 2011, but that had been only 30 years earlier. To us kids it seemed like ancient history. Even World War II ending less than 20 years earlier was “history” for us because we just weren’t around for it. One thing, as competitive skiers, we did know however was our coach, Mr. Whaley, had been in the Army’s 10th Mountain Division; the ski troops. Off that he got us surplus trekking skis made for combat. We used them for cross country but had to trim them down in the shop to make them narrow. The advantage they gave us due to the extra weight in training was typically lost in competition, however, because we were too strong for the dainty thin competition skis made only from wood in a time before high tech plastics. It was a cause to celebrate if we could actually complete a race without snapping off the tips.

Mr. Whaley’s car in the winters of 1963 and 64 was a little green Nash Rambler. Into that car we would pile with our skis on the roof and off we would go to ski areas for recreational skiing or to a ski meet. How many people could that have been? Faded memory suggests that the whole ski club along with Coach Whaley was on board but of course that would have been impossible. It probably was true that one of us rode shotgun next to Mr. Whaley with two or three of us in the back seat – probably three in a time when high school students didn’t typically enjoy the luxury of their own cars.

I don’t ever recall helping to pay for gas even at 26 cents a gallon. His generosity on a teacher’s salary not to mention the willingness to spend so many off-duty hours taking students out to do such meaningful things as skiing and competing reminds us of how many teachers make a difference on a broad front. And that doesn’t even get close to the concept of liability which has corroded if not eclipsed possibilities for student-teacher interaction today. We were able to live with less fear then. But I digress; or… maybe not.

In thinking consciously of the impact of those times on my life, both then and right on down to the present, it strikes me that the “vehicle” for tracking the significance of it all is the vehicle itself. It didn’t take too much time thinking in that perspective to realize how that unlikely little green “bucket of bolts” actually serves as a metaphor for the meaning in life.

Let me explain.

A sort of pop psychiatrist named M. Scott Peck, MD wrote a book in 1978 he named it after the Robert Frost poem “The Road Less Traveled”. About ten years later, in a tough patch of my own personal growth, I came to read the book and discovered Peck’s model for a healthier outlook on life. His construct utilizes three words: Discipline. Love and Grace.

In that order. Discipline – Love – Grace. It starts with something very tangible, even measurable, and works its way to the less and less explainable and the unmeasurable.

So Discipline –
The easy, open sense of humor brought to us by Mr. Whaley was seen by my undisciplined mind as a pathway to exploitation. I think the tough thing for him as the teacher must have been that we actually came up with some clever things once in a while. And being so very human he would allow himself to laugh and enjoy that with us. My ratio of clever to annoying was sadly out of balance and sooner or later something had to give. On one such fatal day we were stacked into the Rambler on our way to a race at Kimball Union Academy. “KUA” was a prep school about fifteen miles distant and tucked away in the woods around the remote village of Meriden, New Hampshire. The most direct way was along a route called “True’s Brook Road” which coincidentally led past a favorite swimming hole in the summer. As we turned onto the road we no doubt laughed and joked and poured out an endless stream of nonsense. Nothing particularly vicious but on this occasion it predictably morphed into something now lost to memory and finally caused the circuit breaker in Whaley’s head to trip. Now mind you – this man did NOT have a short fuse. The loads of reckless comments he endured prior to “losing it”, it should be affirmed, had to have been enormous given his capacity to laugh and enjoy all of what he did with us. I say this to impress just how stupid I must have been in that instance. The Nash came to a halt. By this time we were probably just about as far into the woods on this profoundly, lonely dirt road as you could get without going out the other side. Mr. Whaley turned to me in the back seat and said, “Get Out”. I did so. My skis were taken off the rack, my poles removed from the rear storage space, and off sped the Rambler to the ski meet.

The words of Robert Frost, “lonely dark and deep”, occur to me as I recall the car disappearing and leaving me behind. There would be no skiing that day. Years later as I watched the movie “The Silver Streak”, starring Gene Wilder in a role where he kept getting thrown off an Amtrak train in impossibly remote areas of the far west and yelling out the words: “Son of a Bitch!”, made me laugh knowing no one in the theater could have possibly appreciated that predicament as much as me. No way.
Yes sir – discipline – tangible, objective, right out in front where you can access it. The epilogue, to the sentence of being marooned, in ski boots, 7 miles from civilization on a frozen winter’s day and banished from skiing, was what came after about 30 uncertain minutes. My rescuer was a Tip Top bread truck headed toward me in the direction of the main plant in White River Junction and home. What luck I thought but as the driver stopped to offer a ride I found myself looking right into the eyes of Ralph Coutermarsh my former little league baseball coach. I had actually been a model player for him and so
when he asked the inevitable question about what I was doing “way out here” I paid the second penalty; the penalty of being embarrassed in front of someone who, up ‘til then, had thought of me as a “good kid”.

So what about Love?
Peck’s treatment of the concept of Love endeavors to pull away from romantic and more superficial meanings of the word. His definition: “Love is the will to extend one's self for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth".

“The will to extend one’s self” …

Discipline can be one of the precursors of Love. But the commitment, i.e. the will, to spend as much time as it takes to form a ski club, coach a ski team (with virtually no budget and certainly no pay), tolerate kids in adolescence, and bring humor to all of it is truly an expression of love. Maybe spiritual growth sounds too lofty or ethereal but anyone who knows the great outdoors and the joys of skiing understands the spiritual dimension. The little green Rambler contained us on the path to spiritual growth in the form of hours of conversation in spite of all the foolishness that had to be filtered out and staved off along the way. No doubt in my view, now as then, it was all about a labor of Love. As Mr. Whaley made that investment I too have come to understand what the concept of “a labor of love” means, in more ways than one, since those times.

Grace – that’s the tough one especially in the three dimensional world of Newtonian physics. Gotta’ let go of many things in classical science to get into this one. The word Peck uses beyond “miracles” and “merely unexplainable” is “serendipity”. He talks about it a lot but it can feel quite a bit like running in sand. Logically one comes to realize you are making progress but along the way it often feels like not so much progress at all. Ultimately I conclude the universe is awesome. The Christian litany refers to “The peace that passeth all understanding”. For me that is often the most helpful when all else fails. It especially holds up when one ponders the enormity, the complexity and the apparent, sometimes so totally painful, randomness of events. Even scientists are forced to concede, as Frost reported, that there are “miles to go before I sleep”.

Grace, it’s “Amazing” and it “brings us Home” as the hymn says and so with that, here we are tonight, gathered, speaking from the heart, and honoring each other with our presence. It doesn’t need to get much better than this. And to THINK, in this case, it was cultivated in a little old green Nash Rambler with a person who dared to discipline and had the will to extend himself to nurture our growth. Go ahead… call it spiritual.

An appreciation of Dave's essay:

" That's an A+! " pronounced Mr. Whaley, after Dave Briggs read his essay composed for this occasion (with a half-century of retrospective wisdom), " A Nash Rambler" .

The essay cleverly created the image of his own youthful self, evicted for unwelcome teenage antics from Mr. Whaley' s green Nash Rambler on the way to a ski meet.

Dave used this lonely winter image of an isolated boy on a Vermont back road to suggest that the inspirational quality of teaching is "Discipline, Love, and Grace," a concept he found in contemporary thinker, M. Scott Peck.

That concept is one which Dave's essay suggests he has felt all these fifty years from that powerful lesson on a icy dirt road, as the green Nash Rambler disappeared into the horizon. It is a lesson he thanked Mr. Whaley last night, in person, for teaching him half a century ago.

NB: In addition to sharing Mr. Whaley's distinctive guffaw , I share something else with him: a green Nash Rambler which my parents owned in 1958, similar to the one pictured immediately above.

Paul Keane

(recipient of the the first Delevan E. Whaley, Jr. Award for Excellence in Teaching at Hartford High School)

With

sincere thanks

to

The Live Poets Society

from

Paul Keane

* HHS AWARDS ASSEMBLY (6/15/11): First Whaley Award Presented

Inscription on this handsome brass clock reads

"Delavan E. Whaley, Jr. Award

Paul Keane - 2011"