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Sumner Hawley Society
All persons who name Hyde in their estate plans become members of the Sumner Hawley Society, a recognition program for those who have made a legacy commitment in gratitude for Hyde's life-changing work.
Today, five schools boast the Hyde name, more than a half dozen schools established a partnership with Hyde in the past decade, several Hyde programs deliver guidance and support to parents and educators throughout the country, and three books about the Hyde process have profoundly touched the lives of thousands. Sumner Adams Hawley would be pleased. He reveled in the promise of Hyde's growth, believing that its nontraditional approach to American education was the keystone in an educational arch that was dangerously close to crumbling.
Sumner, one of Bath, Maine's native sons, founded the Hyde School in 1966 with Joseph Gauld. Sumner joined the English department at New Hampton School in New Hampshire in 1951, where he met Mr. Gauld. It was at New Hampton, on Mr. Gauld's porch, during numerous conversations about the ailing state of American education, that the idea for what would one day be called the Hyde School was conceived. Both men took positions at Berwick Academy in 1965, and realized their professional goals could not be reached in a traditional educational setting.
The Hyde Estate in Bath, at Sumner's recommendation, became the setting for the character-based, college preparatory school.
The concept developed years earlier on a porch in New Hampshire had become the Hyde School, with a first-year enrollment of 16 boys. During his tenure at Hyde, Sumner served as assistant headmaster, English teacher, and coordinator of the performing arts program. He was an educator who possessed an innate understanding of young people, motivated students and colleagues to realize their hidden potential, and was a nurturer of student talent. In 1970, Sumner married Jean Gannett, chair of the board of Guy Gannett Publishing, Co., and spent eight more years as a faculty member and administrator at Hyde before retiring in 1978. After his retirement, he joined Hyde's Board of Trustees.
Sumner died on September 18, 1993 after a long illness, leaving behind a legacy that continues to impact thousands of Hyde students and their families.
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