New York Military Academy - Shrapnel Yearbook (Cornwall on Hudson, NY)

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X. rf- . 15 ,, TOM JENKINS CONDUCTS BOXING CLASS Major sports at the Academy reached a peak during the school year of 1926-27. Irish O'Hara, '27, led the 1926 football team through a great season, during which the only break in a steady string of victories was a scoreless tie with Roxbury School. The basketball team won four- teen out of fifteen games during the regular season, losing only to Newtown High School by the narrow margin of a single point. But it was on the baseball field that the cadets really went to town in 1927. Coach Lynn Grow uncovered a sensational sophomore pitcher in the person of Ernest Carpenter, '50. With Carpenter's invaluable assistance on the mound, the team went through the season undefeated, winning nine games against strong opposition. Carpenter set up a great record, pitching a no-hit,no-run game against McKenzie School and shut-outs against Monticello High School and Seton Hall Freshmen. A pair of pre-academic cadets-Wade Allen, '28, and joseph Magruder, '27-qenlivened the otherwise dull rou- tine of the daily schedule with unusual manifestations. Allen turned out for a field problem with a beautiful white scarf arranged kepi-fashion around his hat and earned the sobriquet of Beau Geste for the rest of his scholastic life. Magruder, over-zealous in his efforts to burnish all his equipment to the nlh degree, knocked himself cold from the fumes of cleaning fluid, and had to be revived by a volunteer rescue squad. The fall of 1927 was signalized by the famous Silver Raid which reduced the entire corps to eating with its fm- gers one fateful morning at the first mess. Subsequent in- vestigation developed the fact that a group of night raid- ers had descended upon the mess hall under cover of dark- ness and made off with every fork, knife and spoon on the premises. It was not until a member of the swimming team struck a peculiar mass on the bottom of the pool that the whereabouts of the booty, done up in a large sack, was discovered. Recovery of the treasure put an end to further investi- gation, but Dave Schulman, '29, was generally believed to have been the master mind who engineered this startling coup-de-dining hall. The school year of 1927-28 was a lean one for sports at the Academy, the only bright spot being the record established by the swimming team. Swimming was a first- year sport but the team, captained by Ray Spanjer, '28, of Morristown, N. J., won three out of four meets. Horace Mann, Peekskill Military Academy and Jamaica High School were the victims. The lone N.Y.M.A. defeat was administered by Manual Training High School. The custom of inviting fathers of the cadets also to Page Thirty-three

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Jones, who had always been a leading figure in arranging and producing the cadet shows. The only production staged by Sword and Plume in its first year was Booth Tarkington's The Trysting Place , presented of the Midwinter Hop. Albert Lefever, jr., '25, C. Salmon III, '27, were the individual stars formance. Lewis P. Metesser, '25, was acting the play and handled all the technical details. at the time and Arthur of the per- manager of Despite the fact that all four fraternities on the campus flourished almost from their beginning, there was occa- sional dissension among them concerning rushing and other activities. In order to eliminate these rough spots and to establish a standard code of rules for all to obey, the cadets formed an interfraternity council known as Sigma Phi. This organization immediately set up rules which were accepted by all the fraternities. Most important was that which forbade the pledging of any cadet until he had attended the Academy for a full year, unless he entered in the graduating class. In the latter case a boy might be pledged after completing one term. Members of the original council were Luis Fuertes, '25, and William Laidlaw, Jr., '25, Alpha Chi Sigma, Emil Balzerini, '25, and William Morris, '25, Chi Sigma Chig Frank Sakser, '25, and Fred Dudley, '25, Pi Phi, and Arthur Gallucci, '25, and Lewis Metesser, '25, Delta Sigma Nu. The late fall of 1925 witnessed a staggering shock to the foot soldiers of the corps. A competitive infantry drill among the companies was called for Thanksgiving Day and won by-bold your hats-Troop D, the cavalry unit! The troopers left their hay-burners in the stable, undressed to the extent of removing their beloved spurs, and out- maneuvered their deadly rivals in the infantry companies at their own game. One result of the drill was elevation of Cadet Captain Louis Grimm, '26, to the post of Senior Captain of the Bat- talion. Another was that every one of the thirty-six troop- ers became impossible to live with for the remainder of the school year. The grim haunt of all school officials-an epidemic- descended upon the Academy in the early weeks of 1926. Scarlet fever stalked the campus, filling all hospital fa- cilities to overflowing and placing the entire plant under quarantine. The basketball season was cut off in its prime, with less than half of the schedule completed. The Midwinter Hop, annual high spot of the social season, was postponed twice and finally cancelled. There was a similar curtailment of most of the other cadet activities, as Dr. George Dempsey and an augmented corps of nurses battled to stem the tide of the disease and cure those already afflicted. How well the medical staff succeeded in its task is dem- onstrated by the fact that the track team was undefeated for its second straight season, an impossible accomplish- ment if the boys had not been in perfect physical condi- tion again. The team won five dual meets and William Keish, '27, set a new record in the javelin throw, tossing the spear 155 feet 2 inches. Despite difiiculties arising from the scarlet fever epi- demic, the year also saw the introduction of The Cadet, student literary publication. Two issues of the magazine were published in the first year with Bill Laidlaw serving as editor-in-chief. The Alumni Association, under the leadership of its president, George Porges, '14, became active in the spring of 1926 and climaxed its program with a dinner at the Hotel Pennsylvania in New York. The affair was attended by more than 150 alumni, who were entertained by the Academy glee club and orchestra. This activity was re- fiected the following fall when The Ramble published a page of alumni news in each issue. Colonel Harry M. Scar- borough assembled and edited this page for the cadets. Colonel Scarborough was especially fitted for this task because, although not a graduate of the Academy, he was the senior member of the faculty in years of service. Scar- borough came to N.Y.M.A. in the fall of 1906, after hav- ing attended Dickinson Preparatory School and Dickinson College, from which latter he was graduated with the de- gree of Bachelor of Philosophy. He served as instructor in science until 1925. In 1912 he was appointed headmaster also, and in 1918 his title was changed to executive ofiicer. The latter post was abolished in 1937 and he is now head- master again. Colonel Scarborough served as a captain in the Chem- ical Warfare Service during the World War, was appointed a lieutenant colonel in 1923 and received a Certificate of Capacity for Colonel in 1950. From 1918 to 1937, while Colonel Scarborough was Executive Ofiicer, Mr. Herbert Alvah Hinman was Head- master. A graduate of Middlebury College, Mr. Hinman was Superintendent of Schools in New Haven, Vermont, and Ashtabula, Ohio. He was instructor in science and headmaster of the junior School at N.Y.M.A., and had been connected with the Academy for twenty-five years until his death in 1937. A major addition to the facilities at the Academy was the new swimming pool which was opened in February, 1927. There was no formal swimming team until the fol- lowing year but the sport was made compulsory for all cadets and remains so to the present time. The pool is seventy-five feet long and twenty-five feet wide, and con- tains the most modern equipment for all sorts of aquatic activity. Page Tbirly-two

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M. - .. - Wuxi! .... ... .. .... participate in the Mother's Day week-end program at the Academy was successfully inaugurated on May 13, 1928. About sixty fathers visited Cornwall at this time and it was decided to continue the custom. The program has since been combined with the annual Spring Dance and in 1939, sixteen hundred people attended. Alumni Day was celebrated at the Academy on June 2, and was featured by the presentation by the Alumni As- sociation of portraits of former Superintendents Jones and Davis. At the same time it was announced that a Havana chapter of the Alumni Association had been formed with George L. Childs, '17, as its president. Swimming continued to hold the athletic spotlight in the following year. The sport was received with great enthusiasm and a strong team recruited from the large squad. Led by a previously unheralded freshman, Eric Blevin, '29, the team won eight out of eleven dual meets during the 1928-29 season. Blevin accounted for 78 points, twice as many as scored by any of his teammates, and set new records for the 50- and 100-yard races. He also swam on the record-breaking relay team. Hockey was revived for the first time since 1918, but early indications of plenty of ice were not fulfilled, and the team suffered from lack of practice. The cadets did their best to form a good team, but absence of a competent coach also proved an insurmountable handicap, as they lost all four games on the hastily arranged schedule. Cadet journalists put in an extremely active year. The Ramble, with Albert Brown, '29, as editor-in-chief, set a new record with sixteen issues in the course of the year, and its board was instrumental in obtaining a charter for a chapter of Quill and Scroll, national honorary society for secondary school journalists. The Shrapnel board decided to decorate the 1929 edi- tion with a central art theme and chose as the subject Famous Military Heroes. For the first time in its history, all material in the book was protected by copyright. The Ramble continued the good work in the following year by entering an issue in a national competition for scholastic newspapers, and carrying off first prize in the military school division. More art work was used than in previous years, and other changes were made under the di- rection of Managing Editor Frank Specht, '31. Swimmers again stole the center of the stage from con- testants in older sports during 1929-30. Captain Bill Le- veen, '30, of Woodhaven, L. I., paced the natators by scor- ing 70 points single-handed in the sprints while the team was bowling over eight straight opponents in dual meets. The team also established four new pool records in the course of its highly successful season. Baccalaureate sermons are not usually considered excit- ing by graduating classes, but that delivered at the Acad- emy on june 1, 1930 was attended raptly by every person present. The speaker was Sergeant Alvin C. York, World War hero, the perfect man to get and hold the attention of any group of military school cadets. For the world at large the opening of the fourth dec- ade of the twentieth century was marked by economic tur- moil, a condition unreflected by the course of affairs at the New York Military Academy. Here, young men were be- ing trained in more fundamental values than those that govern the world of finance. Organized dramatics had disappeared from the campus for several years, but were revived in 1930 when the cadets presented an extravaganza called Yea Furlough . This first production was such an immense success that it became an annual feature for the next seven years, and Yea Furlough became a sort of generic name for all productions, with a sub-title designating the particular performance. So-called minor sports produced the best teams. The sharpshooters of the rifle team won twenty-tW0 out of twenty-seven matches and carried off the Second Corps Area championship in a four-cornered match with Man- lius, Bordentown and LaSalle Academies. The swimmers lost only one meet in eight and that one, against Evander Childs High School, was not decided until the relay, final event of the day. Bob Fleischer, '31, of Hartford, captained the rifle team while the Spechr brothers, Frank and Ralph, of West Point, divided the duties of leading the swimmers. Included in the graduating class of 1931 was a cadet who compiled what is probably the greatest individual record since the Academy opened its doors in 1889. Louis Red Grower, '31, of Paterson, N. J., won just about every honor which the school could give him. He won his let- ters in every varsity sport during his last two years in school and was awarded the gold star of the Distinguished Cadet. In his senior year he was also awarded the Laidlaw Athletic Cup, the French Gold Medal, the Neatness and Order Medal, and the Good Conduct Medal. Rifle and track once more dominated the sports scene in 1932, although the baseball team won nine out of ten games under the leadership of Captain C. Gordon Whitey Wagner, '32. The trackmen, however, did not lose a single meet of the six in which they took part, and the relay quartet won its event every time out. joe Costa, track cap- taing james Dickerson, Donald Betts and Arthur Dunn, all '32, made up the relay team. Herbert Seeley, '32, captained the rifle team through the most active season in its history. The team won fifty- five dual matches while losing only four, retained the Second Corps Area title, took first and second places in Page Thirty-four