What might happen if we took seriously the idea of loving each person absolutely and unconditionally? At the very least a few more people would do less harm to themselves and others. Perhaps damage in general would decrease. I’ll bet one thing would happen for sure. Every person who decided to undertake this little challenge would feel better every single time they added one more soul to the roster of those loved absolutely and unconditionally. Who wants to play?

In the spring of 1969, the State YMCA of Maine offered me a job as Executive Director of a rural District YMCA in Aroostook County, the northern most county in Maine, six hours from the Maine/New Hampshire. Actually, they recruited me based on the relationship I had developed with our local YMCA Director in Camden,  Lloyd Snapp. Lloyd knew that the situation in the schools had a strong impact on me and he believed in the things we were attempting to accomplish.

What difference did it make if people learned that their lives had value and purpose and  that impact was with hundreds of kids and adults in YMCA programs in borrowed facilities all over “the county.” People who lived in Aroostook County then (and now for that matter) believed that Aroostook County was the best and most important county in Maine. Talks were occasionally held about secession, not just from Maine but from the United States. If you were going outside the county, it did not matter where you were going except that it was “outside” the county.

There wasn’t much choice except to hit the ground running, as I was hired in the middle of April and we had to open a day camp, using facilities at Aroostook State Park in two months. While Aroostook County was bigger than the states of Connecticut and Rhode Island combined, the camp was primarily for those within twenty miles of Caribou and Presque Isle in the central part of the county. Not too big an operation, eighty youngsters in grades 2 through 6 with high school and adult volunteer counselors. Almost the first person who contacted me was a Doctor from Mars Hill, a small town south of Presque Isle who wanted to give us some scholarship money to better serve all of the people of Aroostook County.

I already knew there was only a very small population of African Americans most arriving as they were assigned to Loring Air Base, a huge Strategic Air Command base for B-52 bombers in the northern part of the county. It was still the “cold war” and Vietnam was just beginning to heat up. Dr. Holt wanted to serve an entirely different population, however, the Native American, Mic Mac tribes that worked the fields of the potato and broccoli farmers. These people were invisible, not considered as part of the “real” Maine and treated like fourth class citizens. Their treatment made the segregated schools of North Carolina look enlightened in comparison. Except in reservation schools, these youngsters were not welcome in the public schools of “the county.”

It seemed like a spectacular priority for a YMC(Christian)A, so I said enthusiastically, “Yes” to four hundred dollars of scholarship money. That provided places for 40 Native American children who were thrilled, even as their parents were filled with disbelief. We got a great many calls about the appropriateness of having these youngsters in camp. They had no running water, how could they be clean? They didn’t go to school, so why would we want them to associate with our school children? And I knew we must be on the right path in order to have stirred up this much controversy in just eight weeks. The issues of living conditions and education moved to the forefront.

In October, there was our first official Board Meeting of the YMCA Board of Directors. When the first question wasn’t about programs or revenue but rather, “Well, Bill, do you think you had a representative group of Aroostook County youth in your day camp this summer?” I knew we were off to the races. My response probably didn’t improve relations too much either. “Well, if you mean did we do enough to serve the Native American youth in the county? Probably not, and next year a doubled effort might really make an impact.”

We ran all the traditional programs of the “Y.” Hi-Y and Tri-Hi-Y groups in most of the high schools in the county. Senior citizens programs in six communities with the biggest population. Basketball leagues, folk music concerts and the camp were standard fair. Youngsters from “The County” heavily attended state-wide programs like Model Legislature and Older Boys and Older Girls Conferences.

There was, however, a big problem with the youth in the county that no one wanted to discuss. U. S. Route # 1 ran from Fort Kent, Maine to Florida and was the primary drug route into the northeastern part of the United States during those years. Many of the youngsters along that road were affected and had no place they could talk with responsible adults about what they were experiencing and growing up in general. By year two we addressed the issue head on.

Jim Word, a Methodist pastor, Kerry Everitt, a local newspaper reporter and I began what we called “The Community House.” It was built by young people and volunteers  in an old run-down building on Main Street in Presque Isle and quickly became the hang out for every long-haired, hippie looking youngster within fifty miles. While drugs and alcohol were not allowed, you would think, from the community’s reaction, we had opened a branch of the “Communist Party” right there in downtown Presque Isle. During a local call in radio program about the project a woman caller asked whether I had been vaccinated by a gramophone needle, apparently a sign of lower class standing and general ignorance. Controversy abounded. I was reminded at the state level that we needed to focus on “traditional” YMCA programs and not do so many things that might get in the way of our ability to raise money.

My problem was that I thought what we were doing was exactly what we were intended to do as a YMCA, serve all the people of Aroostook County. It was not lost on me that YMCA’s in the south were as segregated as the schools and that I had stirred a hornet’s nest. Unfortunately, I did not know how to get our board of directors on board, so I proceeded as a maverick.

About two years into the process, an old and dear friend, Sandy Vilas, with whom I had gone to college, called and asked me to consider applying to be Director of Development at Hawken School in Cleveland, a twelve hundred pupil country day school, at that time for boys and highly regarded. Sandy was an Alumnus and sat on their Alumni Board of Directors. The challenge was that even though the school had existed since 1915, it was dependent on two trustees for its financial well-being. If there was a deficit, Char Bolton, the quadriplegic CEO of Bolton Farms and son of Francis Paine Bolton, a long term Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives and Liv Ireland, the retired CEO and still majority stockholder of Hanna Mining, the largest U.S. mining operation at the time, would write out checks.  While that is a seemingly a lovely luxury, it put the school on very narrow financial footing. There was little Alumni giving and almost no parents annual giving.

To this day, I am not sure how it came about, and when it became known that I was going to interview at Hawken School, I received calls from University School to head their theatre department and teach English and Western Reserve Academy where I was offered the job of Director of their newly created Upward Bound Program. It was an amazing opportunity from my point of view at age twenty-four. The goal all along was to learn better how to create environments where people experienced their value and worth and consequently took care of themselves and sought to be a contribution to others. I never forgot Albert Boothby’s admonition, “Love the bigot, hate the behavior.”

The choices were clear and dramatic. University School had just completed building a new 14 million dollar Upper School, with a theatre complex that rivaled anything on Broadway. To teach theatre and English there would certainly be an opportunity. During the interview with Roland McKinley, the Headmaster, it became obvious that his chair was about a foot higher off the floor than those of his guest chairs. It prompted me to ask a loaded question. “Other than the obvious physical opulence of this facility, what makes this school unique?” Roland reeled back in his chair and said, “We have a player. And now I will tell you exactly what sets this school apart.” While I did not take that job, Roland and I became friends as I knew he could be counted on for candor.

Western Reserve Academy was an old and extremely well-regarded boarding school. While I knew the importance of the Upward Bound Program, it seemed like running that program would be taking a step back to familiar though tempting territory.

Hawken School was a different matter. What appealed to me about Hawken was that Jim Young, its young and very eager Headmaster actually used words like lives of value and purpose. Did he want young people to have a spectacular academic experience, absolutely.  And he wanted them to grow up knowing that they were going to be leaders and they had to decide what kind of leaders they wanted to be. There was no money for scholarships. The first fifty thousand dollars we raised for annual giving went to that. Everything needed to be personalized. Previously, the only letters people got from the school were mimeographed and completely generic. We built a ropes course for the core curriculum of an outdoor leadership program. The Leistershire Program was modified for the elementary grades, building on the value of each child being unique. And Jim saw the chief fund raiser as an integral part of all of the philosophical conversations. We worked diligently to balance the budget and raise teachers salaries to among the most competitive in the city. We had two strong educators as heads of the lower and upper schools and I worked closely with Jim on everything from long range planning to core policy issues brought before the trustees.

One of our first opportunities came when a member of the community offered to give the school one million dollars, if we would only take his son as a special student into the school. While a great school for youngsters with average and above average intelligence, there was no program for “special needs youngsters.” We declined the offer for the sake of the young man involved and established that we could not be “bought” for any reason.

In another completely unrelated situation, I was invited to a large banquet hall where a single table for twelve was set in the middle of a room that could seat a thousand people. The Grandfather, Father, Uncles and friends of a particular youngster “encouraged” us to take this particular applicant. I made a comment about liking the wine we had at lunch only to find a case of it sitting on the front seat of my car on the way out. The wine was returned, the family was lovingly told the admissions policy and how to proceed. I will admit some relief when that particular student was accepted.

The faculty really believed we should be a co-educational school, in the best interests of the students and their adjustment to the “real world.” The issue was brought before the Board of Directors on a day when the school’s two biggest benefactors were absent. No member of the Board was willing to go talk to Char Bolton and Liv Ireland. I immediately volunteered. In both cases, they had no problem with the decision and would be happy to honor their pledges to the capital campaign. Liv Ireland gave me a check that day for three hundred and fifty thousand dollars, just so everyone would be sure they meant what they said. What I found interesting was the reluctance of the trustees as a group to be seen as on the  “wrong” side of an issue. None of these other trustees had the financial clout of these two scions of industry. None were willing to be seen as part of a failure if we had not been successful.

We designed an incredible Arts Communication Building, including a new theatre. We then recruited Steve Kline who was playing Caiaphas in Jesus Christ Superstar on Broadway to head the theatre department and direct the school plays.     There was an understanding in everything we did that the people were more important than the facilities and excellence in both were the goal. If we had asked this faculty to go to Alaska, the only questions would have been when are we leaving and what do we need to bring. A spectacular spirit of co-operation pervaded the school.

Some learnings along the way:

1. Organizations without a clear purpose and support of the board of directors are at least vulnerable, if not completely at risk.
2. Clarity means everybody gets to choose.
3. If you look, the excluded are everywhere.
4. Communities that agree to close their eyes are capable of great damage.
5. This was never the “New World!” We stole it from Native Americans.
6. Being wanted is nice for an instant.
7. Power and money do not necessarily mean people have the courage of their convictions.
8. People are the most important ingredient in any project!