Most memorable N/MH experience/s: could be "feasting" on Saturday nights after lights out and/or sneaking out of the dorm or something like the thunder and lightning at Christmas Vespers or a significant athletic triumph. What do you remember that brings a big smile to your face?:
I started at Mount Hermon, as it was then called, as a Junior in 1963. I worked hard academically, especially in a literature class taught by Mr. Zilliax, who was inspirational to me. And I went out for the Cross-Country team.
The team was loaded, mostly with transfers from other schools: George Bowman and Chase McQuade had been NE Cross Country champions at Avon Old Farms, and Jim Vincent had been a NY state half-mile champion. I'd run the quarter mile for one season at Amherst High School, and had broken an extremely poor school record--but was not in a league with George or Chase or Bill Wilson, who was a returning member of the varsity team. On the first day of practice, I nearly passed out in the shower, and Chase McQuade had to prop me up. I've always been especially grateful for that act of kindness, because it entailed a degree of physical proximity that might have threatened Chase's reputation as a ladies man. No such threat materialized, as it turned out, then or at any point in the next two years.
Chase died of cancer this past year, tended by his wife Marilyn, and supported by Jim Vincent and several other team mates from Mount Hermon days.
I was eventually able to work my way into the core group of the Cross Country and Track teams, and that became my identity for the time I was at Mount Hermon.
Next fall, when I returned to school, I was approached by Bill Green, whom I barely knew. He told me that Joel Kuntz, who had been elected Student Council President the year before, had been expelled from school. I think it was for having been caught in bed with his girlfriend. Bill said something like "We can't let them do this to us. You have to run for Student Council President." I had no idea what he was talking about.
It turned out that 'they' were the school administration, from whom I felt no conscious estrangement, and 'we' were the handful of Jews at Mount Hermon. I had never noticed any antisemitism at Mount Hermon, and when it came to religion, I thought of myself as a somewhat lapsed Congregationalist. I didn't know what to do, so I went for advice to Mr. Zilliax, who had chosen me as a floor monitor in his dorm.
Mr. Zilliax told me he thought I had a good chance of being elected, because I was a good student and member of very successful teams, and that being elected would help me get into whatever colleges I applied for--but that I shouldn't run unless I actually had something constructive to push for if I actually got elected. So I talked with my teammates and with Bill Green and a few others. I don't know who suggested that Northfield and Mount Hermon should become a single co-ed school, but that sounded like a good idea to most of us.
I did get elected, and at some point it occurred to us on the Student Council that since the first two classes at both schools were always smaller than the Junior and Senior classes, and since the Northfield campus was smaller than the Mount Hermon one, it might make sense for the younger students of both genders to be housed at Northfield and the older students at Mount Hermon. We proposed this to the faculty and administration.
I have no idea whether this idea was original with us. I do remember that it created quite a stir. I have a distinct recollection of being cornered in the coat room of the Dining Hall by a very large man who was one of the football coaches, and being loudly informed that it was not the place of mere students to make proposals about the structure of the school.
I'd be interested to learn whether the eventual course that was taken by Northfield Mount Hermon had anything at all to do with a proposition put forward by our Student Council and its rather accidental President.
