Wiillkes Academy:: A Trriibutte
 | | Class of 1971 |
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It was the big red building on the hill. It was old, often too cold and damp, more often too hot. The desks were the old timey type, the kind with the lift-up tops, and they were covered with the ink from a hundred pens, memorializing as many names and romances. The radiators banged and rattled and some people swore the place was haunted. Anyone who spent much time inside it knew beyond a doubt that there was a spirit there. It is a spirit that is hard to describe to those who did not experience it. I know, because I could not explain it to my husband the night my parents called to tell me Wilkes Academy was closing. All I could do was cry.
My earliest memories of the Academy are those of a six year old. It was the summer of 1970 and I was about to start second grade. I spent a lot of time up there that summer with my Dad, "helping" get the building ready for its first day of school. I remember the sound - sweeping, hammering, scraping; and smells - fresh paint, new carpet. I remember "the Wills boys," who always seemed to be there that summer, working. Before the summer ended, I knew every inch of that building and to this day I remember every room, every broom closet and corner.
 | | Class of 1972 |
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By the day the Academy opened, I already felt, like all others who experienced it over the next two decades, that it was "my" school. I remember the day the teachers passed around the ballots that year so that all of us (even second graders!) could vote on our school colors and our team mascot. And I remember the night I graduated eleven years later. The tears that rolled down my face as we sang our alma mater that night came from the realization that I was leaving a place that was special like no other.
Though he was not part of its early years, John Boyd came to be such a part of the Academy that it is difficult for me to think of one without thinking of the other. I remember being absolutely terrified of him when he first came. He was such a big man, and went out of his way to cultivate the authoritarian image that made us quake in our boots. And he was smart, one of the smartest people I have ever known, and that only added to the respect he commanded. I tried to avoid ever getting on his bad side, though I remember one particular time when I and several of my eleventh grade classmates did just that. With his permission, we had used the chapel as our workroom in preparing and painting props for the upcoming Junior-Senior. I will never forget the look on his face when we tried to explain to him that the huge splotches of dried red paint all over the chapel floor should wash right off because we had used water-based paint instead of oil-based. Let's just say he was not amused - and neither were we when he made us spend the next several days on our hands and knees scraping it all up. But though my respect for him never wavered, my view of Mr. Boyd changed over the years as I came to know him and love him.
 | | Class of 1973 |
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Now, when I think back on him, the images that come to mind first are not those of the drill sergeant, but of the man who became our majorette sponsor. Here was this former Navy pilot, brilliant scholar, standing outside "critiquing" our baton twirling - saying things like, "You know that part where you threw it and turned around? Your arms were kinda flopping around."
 | | Class of 1974 |
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He was also the man who took our biology class on a field trip to Skidaway Island. I especially remember one day of that trip when we were on the beach looking for samples of marine life. It was cold and overcast and none of us would have even considered going in the water. Mr. Boyd, though, pointing out that we were all wimps, waded way out into the ocean with all his clothes on, and had (as he described it) "a refreshing swim." He also, to our horror, took great pleasure in cracking open and eating a raw clam in front of us on the beach.
That was Mr. Boyd. He teased us, shocked us, and sometimes exasperated us, but most of all he pushed us, taught us, and loved us.
Shortly after it closed, there was a sale at the Academy. As I rummaged through the desks, books, and various pieces of school materials and equipment, the memories came flooding back - the football and basketball games, the track meets and championships, the barbecues, pep rallies, dances and assemblies; the Halloween carnivals and Christmas bazaars. I thought of the parents and teachers who worked into the night every summer to get the building ready for the first day of each new school year, and I remembered the smell of fresh paint and floor wax that greeted us year after year. I looked inside every classroom and remembered how tough those classes were and how grateful I have since been that they were that tough. And I thought of the teachers who went the extra mile for us and taught us that we were capable of anything.
 | | Class of 1975 |
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For those of us who were part of Wilkes Academy, I think there will always be deep sadness that the big red building on the hill no longer houses all the people, laughter, learning and heart that was Wilkes Academy. I do believe that to this day it houses a spirit - not the ghosts that made us all a little afraid to go into the building after dark - but a true spirit that became a part of all of us who walked its halls. I feel it every time I drive by the Academy gates and it has put a lump in my throat each time I have ventured inside the building in recent years. Most of all, I feel it whenever I am with people who were part of Wilkes Academy. Whatever that spirit is, I am grateful that I had, and still have, the privilege to be part of it. "Hail to thee, Wilkes Academy..." - You were the best.
 | | Class of 1976 |
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Allison Gunter Hale
W.A. Class of 1981
 | | Class of 1977 |
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 | | Class of 1978 |
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 | | Class of 1979 |
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 | | Class of 1980 |
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 | | Class of 1981 |
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 | | Class of 1982 |
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 | | Class of 1983 |
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 | | Class of 1984 |
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 | | Class of 1985 |
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 | | Class of 1986 |
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 | | Class of 1987 |
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 | | Class of 1988 |
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 | | Class of 1989 |
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 | | Class of 1990 |
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 | | Class of 1991 |
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 | | Class of 1992 |
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