Welcome Home

I'm humbled to write today's blog about a man I consider a friend and a mentor. Without his vision, energy and collaborative work NGFS would have not come into existence. You see, in 1969 Bruce Stewart took a group of Guilford College students to the Philadelphia area to visit Friends Schools there. From that visit the vision arose to create a Friends School in the Greensboro area. Through Bruce's hard work and the hard work of others including another founder of the school and current trustee Jim Newlin, New Garden opened its doors in 1971.

Bruce continued his service to Guilford College for many more years. In fact, that is where I first met him, when I was a student at Guilford. A little known fact, Bruce and I ran on the same 5K relay team race contested by Guilford students and staff and sponsored by the college. After his tenure at Guilford, Bruce served as head of school first at Abington Friends School, in Jenkintown PA. AFS is one of the oldest Friends Schools in the country, having opened its doors in 1697. He left Abington to become head of Sidwell Friends School in Washington DC. At Sidwell, Bruce would tell me he had to be so careful with his words and any statistics or data he shared publicly because of the Washington press. Yet he led Sidwell with such incredible vision and concern for all things Quaker.

Through the years I have had many opportunities to visit with Bruce. We always have had time to get together at Friends Schools Heads Gatherings and we served on the Friends Council on Education Board of Directors. Each time I see Bruce, all he wants to talk about is NGFS and how this community is doing. He has said he never imagined NGFS having the staying power to become such a strong, educational institution in the Triad area. That he thought it might live for 10 years, and having served its mission, closed its doors. He is thrilled that we continue to serve that initial mission of educating kids in a caring, supportive, challenging environment.

Bruce cares deeply about the NGFS community and has for longer than the school has existed. We are fortunate next week to welcome Bruce home for a day. He and his wife Andra will be visiting NGFS on Wednesday, November 18. At 5:30 PM he will be speaking in the Commons at the upper division campus. All NGFS community members are invited to this event and we hope you will come out' share with friends that you think may be interested also. Bruce is a dynamic, visionary speaker. He will share about "The Importance of Friends Education for the 21st Century." If you can come please RSVP to Beth Brooks at bbrooks@purringtonmoody.com. We are offering child care at the Guilford campus in the extended care room.

I hope to see many of you at this special event. It will be a great time to say thanks to Bruce, hear him speak about a topic near and dear to his heart, and welcome him home.