Fairfax Hall High School - Chain and Anchors Yearbook (Waynesboro, VA)

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Our 50th Dear Saturday, June 6, rings down the curtain on the 1969-70 session and marks the close of Fairfax Hall’s 50th year. Graduation Day this year thus becomes more jubilant than ever because of this anniversary milestone. Fairfax Hall’s bir th is chronicled in a local newspaper, The Valley Vir- ginian, on August 6, 1920, in a brief news announcement: ‘Professor J. Noble Maxwell, president of the new Fairfax Hall, states that the school for young women will be opened in the former Brandon Hotel, purchased for that purpose last summer. Mr. Maxwell, who is a former Stauntonian and during recent years was successful business manager of Lewisburg Seminary, has prepared a handsome catalogue for Fairfax Hall.” A later newspaper article reported: “The opening of Fairfax Hall has made the twin cities (Waynesboro and Basic City) richer by ninety-seven young ladies representing twenty-eight states and foreign countries.” So the new school came into being, succeeding an earlier Brandon In- stitute which had operated in the same building from 1913 to 1919. Under the Maxwell administration Fairfax Hall made rapid progress both in the academic field and in improvements to the physical plant. The gymnasium with indoor pool was built in 1926-27, of English half- timbers and stucco on a base of North Carolina granite. The outdoor pool was added as a landscape feature; the stable was built; and extensive plant- ings of holly, magnolia and dogwood were made on its wooded campus. Following Mr. Maxwell’s death on March 26, 1932, the school was headed by his widow, Mrs. Octavia Goode Maxwell, and his late sister, Miss Frances May Maxwell. In June 1936 the Fairfax Hall properties were pur- chased by the late William Benjamin Gates, Sr., then president of Black- stone College, who established an accredited junior college department, en- larged academic course offerings, and strengthened the physical education and fine arts programs. A freshman dormitory was built in 1948 affording rooms for additional students and improved classroom and laboratory facili- ties. The junior college department was discontinued in 1956 to concen- trate in the preparatory school field. William Benjamin Gates, Sr., died on July 6, 1959, after serving as president of Fairfax Hall from 1936 and after more than 57 years of service in the field of public and independent school education. He was succeeded by his son, Fairfax Hall’s academic dean, William Benjamin Gates, Jr., who continues as the school’s fourth chief administrative officer. Dr. Robbins L. Gates, formerly on the faculty of Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut, served as academic dean from September, 1959, to Tune, 1965, leaving to become a member of the faculty at Mary Baldwin College, Staunton. Deans serving since have included Mrs. Mildred Taylor Smith, Mrs. Evelyn T. Kiser, and Mrs. Mary D. Lawter. As it was in 1920, the promise of Fairfax Hall’s 51st year and the years to come is to help students learn those things which lead to know ledge of and respect for rights and duties; to recognize that freedom is rela’ tive to the rights of others; and to develop responsible judgments which enable individuals to stake out as goals those things which are decent and worthwhile.

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Glasaes