Peddie School

Peddie School
File:Peddie logo.png
Location
Hightstown , New Jersey USA
Information
Type	Private, Boarding
Religious affiliation(s)	None
Established	1864
Headmaster	John Green (headmaster)
Faculty	85
Enrollment	503 total 63% boarding 37% day
Average class size	12 students
Student to teacher ratio	6:1
Campus	Suburban, 280 acres (1.1-km²)
Color(s)	Blue   Gold   mascot = Falcons
Athletics	20 sports
Website	www.peddie.org

The Peddie School is a college preparatory school in Hightstown, New Jersey, United States.

It is a highly selective, nondenominational, coeducational boarding school located on a 280‑acre (1.1-km²) campus, and serves students in the ninth through twelfth grades, plus a small post-graduate class.

It was founded as an American Baptist school, The Hightstown Female Seminary, in 1864, but later that year, boys were admitted, and it changed its name for the first time. In 1872, it became the Peddie School in honor of philanthropist and politician Thomas B. Peddie, who gave the school US$25,000.

Peddie remained coeducational until 1908, when, for social and economic reasons, it decided to admit boys only. This was reversed in the early 1970s, and girls were readmitted. As of March 2007, 21 states, the District of Columbia, and 22 foreign countries were represented among the student body .

In 1993, former Ambassador Walter Annenberg (Class of 1927) gave US$100 million to Peddie, the largest donation ever made to a U.S. secondary school at the time, and unsurpassed until 2007 (by a US$128-million donation to the George School). At April 2007, Boarding School Review reported that the school has an endowment of over US$300 million, one of the largest among preparatory schools in the United States.

Academics

The academic year is divided into three terms, the first two focusing on a rigorous core curriculum. During the third term, besides mathematics and certain required science courses, students may choose electives.

The Advanced Placement Program offers courses in AP Biology, AP Chemistry, AP Physics C, AP European History, AP United States History, AP French Language, AP Spanish Language, AP Latin Literature, AP Calculus AB, AP Calculus BC, AP Statistics, AP Psychology, AP Computer Science, AP Art History, AP Music Theory, AP Studio Art and AP Chinese Language and Culture. An Independent Study Program provides students with the opportunity to study a specialized subject in depth.

Peddie also offers the opportunity for juniors to participate in a program called "Summer Signature Experiences", allowing a select group of students to spend three to six weeks (of the summer before their senior year) to pursue their passions and doing research on a particular subject of interest. When they return to school, each participant writes a formal paper and gives a 30-minute public presentation describing the experience. Examples of previous research topics include: experiencing first-hand the Italian Renaissance architectural philosophy in Rome, Italy and Florence, Italy; discovering underwater archaeology on the Greek island of Paros; interviewing African heads of state and tribal chiefs about democracy; and studying flamenco dancing in Seville, Spain.

Athletics

All students must participate in theater, on an interscholastic team, or in one of the elective physical-education classes after school.

The Ian H. Graham Athletic Center houses a swimming pool and separate diving tank; three basketball, volleyball, and tennis courts (surrounded by an indoor Tartan track); a wrestling room; an indoor soccer and lacrosse facility with Astroturf, a 2,000-square-foot (190- m²) fitness center with state-of-the-art equipment; a room housing eight ergometers; and a fully equipped 6-bed training room and sports-medicine center. Outdoor facilities include fourteen tennis courts, eight multipurpose fields, a specially equipped varsity football and lacrosse training field, a softball field, an Olympic-caliber ¼-mile all-weather track, a varsity football and lacrosse field, three baseball fields. A recent addition, the Hovnanian Fields, added another six fields, dedicated seasonally to the freshmen and junior varsity soccer and lacrosse teams.

The Athletic Center holds a replica of the Heisman Trophy donated to the school by Yale University lineman Larry Kelley (Peddie class of 1933), who won it in 1936, the second year in which it was given.

Peddie has its own 18-hole golf course, where the boys' and girls' golf teams compete. The course is a private facility of the Peddie Golf Club, but students and faculty have free access to the greens.

The school competes in the Mid-Atlantic Prep League, a sports league with participating institutions from preparatory schools in the New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania area.

Peddie is a member of the New Jersey Independent School Athletic Association (NJISAA), competing in the "Prep 'A'" division with The Lawrenceville School, The Hun School of Princeton, Blair Academy, Saint Benedict's Preparatory School and other New Jersey preparatory schools depending on the sport. Peddie has graduates competing at the collegiate level in swimming, wrestling, basketball, track, crew, baseball, softball, soccer, lacrosse, golf, and tennis. The school mascot is the Falcon.

Basketball

Peddie boasts a nationally recognized girl's basketball program. In 2010 they won the ESPN National High School Invitational finishing the year 25-2. From 2000-2010 the girl's basketball program has been ranked one of the top 25 teams in the country seven times. During this same time period, three McDonald's All-Americans played for the Falcons including: Crystal Goring '05 (Richmond), Bridgette Mitchell '06 (Duke) and Haley Peters '10 (Duke). Head Coach Sean Casey was selected as the 2010 Naismith High School National Coach of the Year.

Football rivalry

Peddie's arch-rival is Blair, and the two schools compete every year during the second week of November for the Potter-Kelley Cup. The day of the football competition, which alternates yearly between campuses, is known as Blair Day at Peddie (and Peddie Day at Blair). The game between the two schools is the oldest football rivalry in New Jersey and ranks among the oldest in the country.

Crew

In 2006, the Peddie Girl's Varsity Four won the United States Youth National Championship, a regatta hosting the strongest club and scholastic teams in the nation. They won again in 2007, defending their U.S. Youth National Regatta title. In 2008 Peddie's Girl's Varsity Four placed third in their division at the Head of the Charles Regatta and returned to the Youth National in Ohio, placing second. The men's varsity four also traveled to Ohio, placing twelve in the Varsity Lightweight Four event. In 2009 the girls and boys returned to the National Championships. The girls regained their first place position, and the men placed sixth in the Petite Final of the Heavyweight Varsity Four. The women then continued on to the prestigious Henley Women's Regatta in England, setting a course record on their way to the final and eventually placing second.

Swimming

Peddie also boasts a nationally acclaimed swimming program. The team has won the Swimming World Mythical National Championships eight times, including the inaugural boys' and girls' independent-school titles in 1977 and 1982. The teams in the early 1990s were among the most-dominant high-school swimming programs in history, winning back-to-back boys' and girls' Mythical titles in 1990 and 1991. The 1994-95 team was the only team ever to lead the nation in all six relays. The girls' team claimed first place at the 2008 Eastern Intersholastic Swimming and Diving Championships held at La Salle University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 14 points ahead of runner-up Germantown Academy. During the 2008 championships, Peddie broke three national independent-school records in the girls' relay events.

Facilities

The Walter and Leonore Annenberg Science Center

Annenberg Hall, formerly Memorial Hall, houses the English, Mathematics, and Foreign Language departments.

In fall 2005, The Walter and Leonore Annenberg Science Center opened. The 42,000-square-foot (3,900 m²), US$19-million facility features 11 laboratory classrooms, a fully equipped DNA and Special Projects laboratory, a dedicated advanced experimental physics facility, a psychology seminar room, and 10 "genius" SMART Boards. The "genius" SMART boards are normal whiteboard surface boards, unlike normal SMART Boards, though capable of capturing any drawing on the board using special barcoded markers. Ceiling-mounted mobile fume-hoods are located above each table in the Biology and Chemistry department laboratories.

The Annenberg Science Center replaced science classrooms at the previously modern Caspersen Science Building, originally built in the late 1960s. It was subsequently remodeled and renamed Caspersen History House in 2006; it houses History department facilities.

The Swig Arts Center facilitates the school's visual art, music and theater programs.

The William Mount-Burke Theatre in Geiger-Reeves Hall hosts both student performances and outside ones as well.

The Ayer Memorial Chapel has been host to a variety of speakers, including Martin Luther King, Jr., U.S. President Gerald Ford and Colin Powell.

The Peddie Golf Club is an 18-hole, par 72 golf course located on the Peddie School campus.

Student life is centered around the Caspersen Campus Center which houses the dining hall, underclassmen lockers, the bookstore, and the student grill.

Notable alumni

• Walter Annenberg, 1927 - former Ambassador to the United Kingdom and founder of TV Guide and Seventeen magazines.
• Tim Acito - 1986 - composer-lyricist-librettist including the Off-Broadway show, Zanna, Don't! and former professional dancer with Taylor 2 (Paul Taylor) and MOMIX and an all-American gymnast.
• B. J. Bedford, 1990 - Olympic gold-medalist swimmer (women's 4x100 metre medley relay team) in the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia.
• Pedro Herrera III, also known asChingo Bling, 1997 - Mexican-American rapper and record executive; his second album, They Can't Deport Us All was certified Gold by the Record Industry Association of America.
• Roy-Allan Burch, 2004 - Olympic swimmer representing Bermuda in Beijing, China.
• Duane 'Dewey' Clarridge, 1949 - former CIA operative and author of A Spy for All Seasons, his memoirs.
• Pia Clemente, 1989 - received Academy Award nomination for Best Live Action Short Film for her film, Our Time is Up.
• Nelson Diebel, 1990 - double Olympic gold-medalist swimmer at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, Spain.
• Colin Ferrell, 2003 - defensive tackle for the Indianapolis Colts, who played collegiate football at Kent State University.
• Elmer H. Geran, 1895 - was a United States Representative from New Jersey's 3rd congressional district from 1925-1927.
• Erik Hanson, 1983 - pitcher, Major League Baseball.
• H. Richard Hornberger, 1941 - author of M*A*S*H, which spawned the film of the same name and the subsequent M*A*S*H television series.
• John D. M. Hughes, Jr., 1966 - journalist and magazine editor.
• Tim Hurson, 1963 - speaker, writer, creativity theorist, author of Think Better: An Innovator's Guide to Productive Thinking.
• Larry Kelley, 1933 - winner of the 1936 Heisman Trophy.
• Howard W. Koch, 1933 - film producer and director (including Airplane!, The Odd Couple).
• Reid Lamberty, 1992 - television anchor Fox 5 New York.
• John J. McCloy,1912- Assistant Secretary of War during World War II, president of the World Bank, and U.S. High Commissioner for Germany.
• Seyyed Hossein Nasr, 1950 - Iranian philosopher.
• Patricia Sabga, 1985 - NBC News correspondent.
• Nat Sakdatorn, 2001 - winner of Thailand's reality-television singing contest Academy Fantasia (Season 4) and now a singer-songwriter in the Thai music industry under the label "True Fantasia".
• Fernando Perez - Major League Baseball player for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, and published poet in Poetry Magazine.
• Alan Shapley, 1922 - Lieutenant General in the United States Marine Corps and a recipient of the Navy Cross.
• Jenny Smatt, 1992- Olympic athlete representing Bermuda in Barcelona, Spain.
• Richard Swig, 1943- former Chairman, Fairmont Hotels and Resorts.
• Richard Tregaskis, 1933 - war correspondent and author of Guadalcanal Diary, the source for the 1943 film of the same name starring William Bendix, Richard Conte, and Anthony Quinn
• Chris Tomson:, drummer of indie rock band, Vampire Weekend
• Albert L. Vreeland, 1922 - a U.S. Representative from New Jersey.

External links

• peddie.org, school web site
• Peddie Golf Club, Peddie Golf Club web site
• Data for the Peddie School, National Center for Education Statistics
• youtube.com/user/peddieschool, Peddie's module (channel) on YouTube
• Boarding School Review - The Peddie School

• Boarding School Review - The Peddie School