Dear Fellow Alum,
One can’t arrive at Burke Mountain Academy without the feeling that this is no ordinary place. I will never forget the fall day Warren emerged from Frazier to greet me as a new student. It’s hard to wrap my mind around how my own BMA experience weaves in and out of the past three and a half decades of my life. But fast forward now to 2010, where the brilliant fall colors of the Northeast Kingdom have begun to usher in the much-anticipated 41st winter season at BMA. Gazing at Willoughby gap from her bed, my daughter Jenna remarks at her simultaneously peaceful yet challenging life at the Academy.
Those of us that have been away from Burke for years and have now come back with our own children know that BMA has the same core values that were developed in the early years of the Academy. And while we have scattered across the U.S., busy working through college, careers and starting families, BMA has itself quietly grown, not without struggle, to be, at once, a school that is nearly unmatched in its abilities to train world class athletes and an exceptional institution of learning. As BMA parents, we expect BMA to create lifetime athletes, but it is the academic program that continues to surprise. These days, the stories that come home from BMA are equally academic and athletic.
Burke academics go far beyond boilerplate college preparation. For example, scientist Dave Iverson turns traditional science learning on its head with a battery of his own pre-recorded web-based physics lectures absorbed during homework, leaving the classroom to become a hotbed of experiment and mind-expanding discussion. Historian and writer Reid Jewett allows no laptops in her classroom, and draws her students through a study of American history that is no simple textbook survey, but instead integrates critical writing with student-directed discussion of original historical documents. Clearly, the athletic successes of the school continue to speak loudly about the unmatched alpine and Nordic mentoring that our athletes receive. The BMA athletic experience continues to provide the core for a life that is directed by a transformational mindset of hard physical and mental work and a love of learning.
There is a rock above Willoughby house. Sitting there, rewinding the decades, the seemingly unchanging Gap punctuates that Burke Mountain Academy is very much the same transformational school I was welcomed to in 1974. But it is so much more --thanks to the hard work of headmaster Kirk Dwyer and staff. Our Burke experience is a lifetime gift to us. It is incumbent upon us make our own lifetime gift back to BMA to ensure the school’s long-term ability to continue to give that gift. After all, persistence is the Burke mindset.
Please join me in a commitment to contribute annually to the BMA Annual Fund. Your tax-deductible donation can be made on line at by clicking the "Giving" button at the top of the page or mailing it to BMA, 60 Alpine Lane, East Burke VT 05832.
Warm regards,
Bruce Hill ‘75
Parent of Jenna Hill ‘2012 |