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Hundreds
of friends and admirers attended a memorial service on Feb. 16 in
Cochran Chapel for Joshua Lewis Miner, 81, who died of prostate cancer
Jan. 29 at his Andover home. Miner, who retired from Phillips Academy
in 1985, had also performed extensive service in the local community
and carved himself a niche nationally by founding Outward Bound USA,
a rigorous outdoor adventure program emphasizing self-reliance and
teamwork.
Officiating at the service were the Rev. William Sloane Coffin Jr.
’42; the Rev. Philip Zaeder, faculty emeritus; and the Rev. Calvin
Mutti, pastor of South Church in Andover and Miner’s next-door
neighbor, who called him the town’s “resident philosopher.”
Among the many family members participating was Miner’s daughter
Louise, who confided that her father had planned the details of the
event, down to the musical selections. “He’s been talking
about this for decades,” she said, to warm laughter. Former Headmaster
Theodore Sizer told how Miner recruited the first coed student body;
extended PA’s outreach to a more diverse population, partly through
the minority recruitment program A Better Chance; and welcomed international
students and those with special needs. “Phillips was always …
a demanding school,” Sizer observed, “but under Josh’s
watch it was also a school unashamed of its humanity.”
Born in Plainfield, N.J., Miner attended Phillips Exeter Academy and
Princeton. During World War II, he served as a battery commander and
captain in General George Patton’s 696th Armored Field Army,
earning the Purple Heart, the Bronze Star, five Combat Stars and the
Croix de Guerre.
After the war, he worked at the Hun School in Princeton, N.J., and
at the Gordonstoun School in Scotland, whose headmaster, Kurt Hahn,
had founded Outward Bound.
Miner joined the PA faculty in 1952 and served as a physics teacher,
housemaster, and coach of football, basketball and baseball, but in
1964 he interrupted his Andover career to bring the concepts of Outward
Bound to the United States. He devoted eight years to building the
organization’s American operations as a founding trustee and
chairman. The program now encompasses five wilderness schools nationwide
and urban centers in New York and Boston, attracting nearly 40,000
students a year. In its notation of Miner’s death, Time magazine
reported that 600,000 U.S. students, including former president Jimmy
Carter, have taken the course.
Returning to Andover as dean of admissions from 1972–1985, Miner
was the academy’s first contact with thousands of students. Many
have reported that, under strict numerical criteria, they might not
have gained admission, but Miner always seemed willing to “take
a chance” on an applicant in whom he saw a special spark of potential.
As letters poured in during his illness, family members reported,
many began with the words, “You don’t know me, but you changed
my life.”
At PA, Miner also devised the ninth grade physical education course,
including a ropes program and drown-proofing techniques still taught
to all new students. Andover’s Search and Rescue program got
its impetus from Miner’s work with Outward Bound, and he inaugurated
the student service organization now known as Blue Key and helped
shape PA’s
student exchange with the Harbin Institute of Technology in China.
He also started a program that funds trips to Andover for minority
students who have been accepted to the academy and created a network
of alumni recruiters.
Miner was the co-author of Outward Bound USA, published in 1981, and
throughout his career he continued to scout sites and help design
Outward Bound expeditions, undertaking physical challenges like mountain
climbing and canoeing. He rafted the Green River in Utah every summer
until a decade ago. In 1994, the organization designated its headquarters
in Garrison, N.Y., as the Joshua L. Miner National Outward Bound Center.
Miner’s awards and public service commitments are too numerous
to list. A director of the Andover Youth Center and a consultant on
urban affairs to the Peace Corps and the Ford Foundation, he also
served on a state committee for the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights
and on the 1970 White House Conference on Youth. He was a trustee
of Boston’s Judge Baker Guidance Center, which focuses on juvenile
delin-
quency research and treatment. Although interested in gardening, fly
fishing, playing piano, painting, clock repair and beekeeping, he
never ceased networking with folks he recognized as “kid people.”
Right up to his final illness, he seized opportunities to meet with
directors of innovative programs for kids—particularly kids whose
needs were not met in the mainstream educational systems.
He is survived his wife, Phebe Stevens Miner; three sons, Joshua L.
IV, John S. ’71 and Daniel G. ’73; two daughters, Phebe
Miner Richards and Louise M. Miner; two brothers, Frank C. and Tom
M.; nine grandchildren; and three stepgrandchildren.
The oil painting above, by Chas Fagan ’84,
was displayed at the Feb. 16 memorial service. |
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