New Scholarships Honor Longtime Board President

Anonymous donors have established a multimillion-dollar scholarship endowment honoring the Right Reverend Henry Wise Hobson, Class of 1910. A decorated hero of World War I and an activist bishop in the Episcopal Church, Hobson served as a Phillips Academy trustee beginning in 1937 and was president of the Board of Trustees from 1947 to 1966.

The Hobson Scholarship Fund has been created with an initial gift of $2 million, with millions more expected in coming years. The unrestricted fund supports Andover’s strategic plan to greatly increase financial aid for students.

Shortly after Hobson became president of Andover’s Board of Trustees, he took the lead in recruiting the Academy’s 11th headmaster, Lt. Colonel John Mason Kemper, a West Point graduate. Although Hobson claimed that selecting a new head of school was the trustees’ only truly important task, Kemper described the bishop as “a trustee’s trustee, a teacher’s trustee, and—I think it fair to say—he’s a student’s trustee.”

One student from the Hobson era attests to that. Dan Cunningham ’67, a current Andover trustee, grew up in Cincinnati. When he applied to the Academy, Hobson interviewed him. “When I showed up at Andover in the fall of 1963 I did not expect to see a lot of Bishop Hobson. My expectation turned out to be wrong. During my four years as a student at Andover, every time he returned for a meeting of the trustees, Bishop Hobson visited my dorm room. Sometimes I was there and saw him, and other times he left a note for me. It was always a great pleasure either to see him or receive his note. Bishop Hobson truly tended his flock.”

Affectionately known at Andover as “The Bish,” Hobson died in 1983 at the age of 91. In a way, he continues to play
a role in board deliberations—his portrait hangs at the entrance to the Trustee Room. “The Bishop watches as we enter,” said one board member, “and as we leave, he’s still watching and smiling, and seems to be asking, ‘Have you done the right thing?’ ”

Hobson cut a larger-than-life figure. After Andover, he went to Yale, and then to Europe as an infantry officer during World War I. Badly wounded while leading his men in battle, Hobson received the Distinguished Service Cross for his heroism.
After the war, he entered Episcopal Theological School and went on to become one of the youngest pastors ever elected a bishop. He came to the Episcopal Diocese of Southern Ohio in 1930 and soon became known for forward-thinking endeavors, including a “cathedral on wheels.” According to a story published by Time magazine, he conducted services throughout his diocese in a trailer. Hobson spearheaded the Forward Movement, soon adopted by the Episcopal Church as its banner for spiritual renewal in the depths of the Depression.

Prior to America’s engagement in World War II, Hobson, a patriot and internationalist, became national chairman of and spokesman for Fight for Freedom, Inc., a leading proponent of full American participation in the growing conflict. For his endeavors, he gained a new epithet: “The Fighting Bishop.”

—Sally Holm

Field Days
Two new playing surfaces ready for inaugural season

Before a shot is made on net, before a pass is thrown, before the first PA score of the 2007–2008 season is cheered, many will have contributed behind the scenes to enhance the experiences of this year’s Andover athletes: the boys’ varsity soccer team and the varsity football team will each play on a new field this fall.

For the soccer team, a new and improved playing surface means a drier one. The boys’ soccer field has long been plagued with drainage problems. Standing water often hindered the Andover game plan more than the opposing team’s skill did; practices have been arduous, games have been cancelled. But thanks to an improved drainage system on the newly named Smoyer Field, such distractions are a thing of the past.

The same goes for the Phelps Stadium field, which now sports not only improved drainage but also a new synthetic playing surface. “Artificial fields are now made to provide much more natural conditions,” reports Ron Johnson, Andover’s grounds manager. In addition to looking more like real turf and playing more like real turf, Phelps Stadium’s new “infill” field also plays safer. “On natural fields you get compaction, which can lead to injuries,”  says Johnson. Infill technology employs synthetic blades of grass imbedded in ground-up rubber to create an extremely forgiving surface.

Such improved Phelps Stadium field conditions will benefit not only Big Blue’s latest batch of gridiron competitors but also PA athletes on other teams. In the past, many spring teams have competed for time in the Case Memorial Cage, with
demand often exceeding availability. “The new Phelps field provides the opportunity to run more practices outside,” says Mike Kuta, PA’s athletic director. “The boys’ and girls’ varsity lacrosse teams will practice and play on the artificial surface. Other teams—baseball and softball, even ultimate Frisbee—can use the field, in conjunction with the cage, as a practice space.”

“We may even be able to plow a little snow from it,” says Johnson. “We may be able to play on it as early as March.”

THE GAME PLAN

Enhancements to both fields required excavating two feet of existing loam to install sub-grade drainage systems.

Initial work on Smoyer Field began just after Memorial Day 2006. Then, in September, workers seeded the field, with the intention that it would lay idle for a year and be ready for play this August. (Last year, girls’ soccer shared Graves Field with the boys’ team—and, this year, the girls’ team is expected to make some use of Smoyer Field.)

“The school created a master plan for the athletic fields in 2004,” explains Johnson. “They looked at all the fields up in that area and developed a plan for each. Smoyer Field was the first to receive attention.”

Phelps Stadium came a year later, and that field is also to be ready for play by late August ’07. The natural green carpet was rolled out in July and included a large blue A permanently inlaid at midfield.

MORE THAN SEED MONEY

The cost for the Phelps improvement, approximately $1.5 million, was afforded thanks to the generosity of numerous donors, with a much-appreciated lead gift from Charter Trustee Steven Sherrill ’71.

A generous gift from Stanley Smoyer, a past parent of two Andover alumni, led the way for the new million-dollar-plus soccer field. In recognition of the gift, the field will bare the Smoyer family name. (A dedication ceremony is set for
September 22, 2007, and members of the Smoyer family are expected to come from as far as Alaska for the occasion.) Both of Smoyer’s sons played soccer while at PA and later at Dartmouth College, from which their father graduated in 1934. (David ’59 now resides in Massachusetts; brother Billy ’63 was killed in action in Vietnam in 1968.)

Smoyer’s gift, one of the largest from a parent in the history of the Academy, provides Andover something to cheer about, even prior to the season’s start. “The new surface will give us one of the best-looking fields in New England,” says boys’
varsity soccer coach Steve Carr. “People will want to play tournament games here. It’s going to be a real top-shelf field.”

Kuta says such high standards set a tone of excellence appropriate for Andover. “If we’re going to have first-rate programs,” he says, “it’s important to have first-rate fields.”

—Scott Aubrey