The Improbable Founding of a School

The Improbable Founding of a School

BY BEN DUKE III '71

Two young teachers with absolutely no experience in school administration. The two were ambitious, talented, driven, and completely naive. Nonetheless, they decided to found a boys school in Denver, completely ignoring the fact that a) they had no idea what running a school entailed, and b) they had no idea if any Denver families wanted such a school.

They forged ahead, hired two additional teachers and opened a school in the fall of 1953 with seven students. Word got out that maybe, just maybe, there now was a local opportunity for an independent education for boys. Enthusiasm (or was it pride?) kept the young school founders focused.

The two young men? Andrews D. Black and Thomas L. Chaffee. Men of character, men of discipline, men of education, and, most important, men of humor. Without humor, many of their decisions in the early years might have proved to be disastrous. But, local families quickly learned that the young school, called Denver Country Day, was the real thing, offering not only traditional college preparatory classes, but also an array of athletics, arts, and other activities that somehow, as though by providence, emerged, shaping the school as a fine, though tiny, interdisciplinary educational institution.

The Taft School, where Andy Black attended and Tom Chaffee taught, had a considerable influence on the founding of Denver Country Day. Not only did its Headmaster, Mr. Cruikshank, inspire Black and Chaffee to found their school, but Black and Chaffee clearly valued the type of education Taft offered, ultimately hiring a number of Taft-honed teachers, including John Hanford, Walter Rosenberry, and Ed Connors.

Chaffee’s tenure at DCD ended in 1958, when he headed back east to become the Head of the English Department at The Berkshire School in Sheffield, Massachusetts. He retired from Berkshire in 1983 as a clearly beloved teacher. There is an English Prize named for him, and students routinely cited their appreciation for his tough, fair, but engaging teaching style—a style not unlike the many teachers that molded DCD into the fine school it became.

Black remained at DCD, serving as headmaster, teacher, and coach for twenty years until he retired in 1973. He grew the school from the original seven students to around 120—and though small, it became one of the most prestigious independent boys day schools in America. Black oversaw the move to a new campus at Kent Denver’s current location on the former Blackmer farm. He welcomed the Kent School for Girls in 1968, and through Associated Schools, Inc., facilities for science, music, and art were constructed serving both Kent and DCD. This, of course, led to the merger of DCD and Kent into Kent Denver Country Day School, fully endorsed by Black, in 1974.

Black became the seasoned and skilled administrator he claimed he never would become, and he cared deeply about the school and its students. He was a scholar, an educator, and, as important, a humorist and a mentor. Black had an uncanny way of co-opting the DCD students who dared “challenge” the norms of the 1950s and 1960s, diffusing potential crises into learning opportunities or humorous episodes for students, faculty, and board members alike. His daughters remember the glee that their father felt at some of the more creative “prank night” escapades, starting with sneaking a pony into the third-floor study hall of the old school building, and the night the students stole the distributor caps out of the faculty cars around town in the middle of the night so that the faculty could not get to work the next day.

It is very interesting—almost improbable—that two young guys who knew nothing about running a school, started DCD. Denver Country Day School was unique. Always small, always focused on character, it molded a generation of boys into men. It never relied on fitting in with the trends or expectations of the times. It always bore the character of two young, adventurous, and naive men who had a vision—a vision that still shines brightly at the Kent Denver School of 2022.