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December 5, 2006
ANDOVER—Frederic A. Stott, whose life was marked by a passion for outdoor adventure and conservation—as well as remarkable service to his community, various institutions and causes, his Andover and Amherst College alma maters, and his country—died peacefully on December 1, 2006, from complications of an abdominal aneurysm. He was 89.
An e-mail from his longtime friend Andover attorney Michael Morris, inviting friends to a get-together honoring Stott on November 24, said, “Fred has touched many, many lives.… He is truly a wonderful and unique human being.” At the gathering, held at a local restaurant, Stott regaled a roomful of friends with humorous anecdotes of his short-lived stint as a youthful pitcher for the Pawtucket (R.I.) Red Sox and his many Appalachian Mountain Club adventures. The next evening, friends saw him at the movies. The day before he died, he shared memories of Phillips Academy with the school archivist and worked with Appalachian Mountain Club staff on a year-end mailing. He died early in the morning at Lahey Clinic in Burlington, Mass. His wife, Susan, was with him.
Born in Taylor Hall on the Phillips Academy campus, where his father, Frederic W.H. Stott, was an English teacher, Stott lived his childhood, adolescence, and most of his professional life on the Andover campus. He graduated from PA in 1936, and in retirement, he lived on nearby Robandy Road.
After graduating from Amherst in 1940, Stott taught at Governor Dummer Academy in Byfield, Mass. He entered the Marine Corps in spring 1942, joining the fourth Marine Division. He saw service in the invasions of Roi-Namur, Saipan, Tinian, and Iwo Jima. Earning the rank of major, he was awarded two Purple Hearts, a Bronze Star, and the Navy Cross for “extraordinary heroism.” He and his first wife, Georganne “Nan” Soutar, now deceased, married in 1946. They had two sons, Frederic S. Stott ’67 of Concord, Mass., and Peter C. Stott of Alexandria, N.H.
In the 1950s, Stott and others founded the Editorial Project in Education, which produced the publication Chronicle of Higher Education. The project currently publishes Education Week magazine.
After working in California, Stott returned to Phillips Academy in 1951 to work in the alumni affairs office. In 1957, Headmaster John Kemper asked Stott to lead the Academy’s first capital fund campaign, “The Andover Program,” the goal of which was $6 million. Stott raised $6.7 million, the largest amount ever raised by a prep school at that time. He was then appointed director of development and placed in charge of the construction of several buildings financed by the campaign.
In 1972, then-headmaster Ted Sizer named Stott secretary of the academy. Within months, he was given responsibility for the planning and direction of the Bicentennial Campaign. Stott’s goal of raising $50 million was thought to be overly ambitious by many, and even he knew the challenge was enormous, but his plan prevailed. By campaign’s end, Stott and his staff had collected $52 million, the largest amount ever raised by a secondary school. During his tenure as secretary of the academy, Stott was also publisher of the Andover Bulletin.
When boards and committees of various organizations that Stott was associated with met to discuss whom they might honor for outstanding service, their meetings were short lived; Fred Stott’s name rose to the top of the list every time. The Town of Andover honored him for his service as a member of the Conservation Commission, the Finance Committee, and two school building committees, as well as treasurer of the town’s 350th Anniversary. Amherst College bestowed upon him its Distinguished Service Award for Alumni Activities. He won every award the Appalachian Mountain Club could bestow, including the club’s Lifetime Achievement Award for sustained advocacy and volunteer work. In October 2006, the Academy, in a citation, said Stott had “embodied and advanced the ideals of this Academy through a life of service and advocacy.” In 2003, both Fred and Susan were awarded the Town of Andover’s Virginia Cole Community Service Award, which noted, “They don’t assume things are just going to happen; they look for ways to make things happen.” And, when Stott was honored with the Andover Chamber of Commerce Community Service Award in 1994, Michael Morris stated, “There is a constant theme to Fred’s life—he is clearly a person to be counted upon.”
Stott’s first hikes in the White Mountains as a child led to a lifelong involvement with the AMC, culminating in the authorship of On and Off the Trail: Seventy Years with the Appalachian Mountain Club, published in 2004. On a sabbatical in 1965, he trekked with his wife, Nan, to the base of Mount Everest and up to 19,000 feet on Mount Pumori, a trek of 175 miles each way. Four times in the 1990s, he attended the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race in Alaska, sending back articles and photos that appeared in the Concord Monitor and Lawrence’s Eagle Tribune. Stott considered the Iditarod a level playing field, where men and women had an equal opportunity for success.
Quoted in an article in the Amherst alumni magazine in 1996, Stott said, “If you believe a cause or organization is worthy, then its advocacy flows naturally and the asking for and giving of money becomes one of life’s greatest pleasures.”
In addition to his wife and two sons, his survivors include daughters Sandra Comstock of London, Ontario, and Anne Thiam of Miami, Fla.; seven grandchildren; and sisters Ruth Stott Peters ’34 and Helen Stott Spencer ’41.
A memorial service will be held in Cochran Chapel on the Phillips Academy campus at 2 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 9, 2006.
Contributions in Fred's memory may be made to the Appalachian Mountain Club and mailed to the attention of Clare O'Connell, Appalachian Mountain Club, 5 Joy Street, Boston, MA 02108.
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