Love and Ruination: An Engaging Tale of Two Clashical Christian Schools
Chapter One
Riverfront, Texas was a mid-sized town that was large enough to host quite a few amenities, such that the residents there did not have to drive to the “big city” all that frequently. But it was nevertheless still too small to maintain two classical Christian schools—and yet, nevertheless, despite this limitation, it did in fact maintain two classical Christian schools. This was a fact that could be easily verified by anyone. There they were.
These two medium-sized schools used to be one large classical school until one day, about twenty years before our story opens, they had had what professional observers might call a “sociological event.” Lay observers would use phrases like “reactor scram,” or “asteroid strike,” but all agreed about the general aftermath. When the smoke had cleared, there were two schools where there had been just one previously, and each of them thought of themselves as being the original flagship school, with the other one being staffed by renegades, miscreants, and assorted apostates.
Riverfront Classical had managed to hang onto the original name, not to mention two of the board members who had been enthusiastic participants in the original melee. These two board members were now in their early eighties, but their memories were still sharp and, truth be told, still somewhat fresh and tender.
Across town was Cornerstone Classical, with one board member who was a veteran of the earlier civil war. He was now in his sixties, but had only been on the original board for a matter of weeks before the drama had begun to, um, unfold. He had not been very much of a participant, but he did have a ring-side seat, and consequently had a pretty settled view of the character of the two obstreperous octogenarians across town. It wasn’t a very high view. In fact, it was a pretty dim view.
In the meantime, each school had managed to stabilize and survive, which was remarkable, and after a few years, they had both begun to grow again. Cornerstone had a bit of a head start since they had started with two/thirds of the original student body, and about the same percentage of the teachers, but after about five years, Riverfront had more or less caught up.
The original Riverfront had been a member of ACCS, and so Cornerstone had promptly joined SCL. They were still more or less an ACCS-style school, but for all sorts of reasons it was just easier to go to different conferences, thus avoiding the awkward small talk. That way you didn’t have to pretend to be friends while sitting in on panel discussions.
After Riverfront caught up in the enrollment department, this had the resultant disadvantage of a looming prospect, that being the day when they would be moved up to the same sports division. Nobody thought there would be fist fights or anything, and it was long enough after the grand meltdown to not cause any gaudy flame-outs. Those who were thinking about the prospect, and worrying about it, thought that it was going to be more like walking into a large produce cooler. But they hoped that when the day came, and basketball out in public was involved, everyone would be prepared to be decent Christians, more or less. Or to act like they were decent Christians anyway, which is not necessarily the same thing.
When the split had happened, the two respective headmasters had been key players in the clash, and had helped to build up their respective fortress walls after the fact. The new headmaster at Cornerstone had been the elementary principal at Riverfront, from which position he had been developing decided opinions about how the headmaster of Riverfront was screwing everything up. It was not surprising that he rose to the top of the dissenting faction right after the division, and was now able to consider himself the equal of one who was now across from him . . . instead of that incompetent educator swanking around above him like he used to do.
But about twenty years into what had to be considered a deliberately crafted rivalry, carefully cultivated, both of these men had made their exit from the scene by means of two heart attacks, and all within the same academic year. Their replacements had been hired, on the part of each school, as a result of a nation-wide search, and they had both arrived in Riverfront, Texas within a few months of each other. The two new headmasters did not have any real institutional memory at all. You, the reader, already know a lot more about it than they did. A few oblique references to the situation had been made during their respective job interviews at Riverfront and Cornerstone, but the pointed nature of the references had been entirely missed. There was no hook to hang them on.
What had the conflict been over? Well, it was twenty years before, and no one, except for the three gentlemen on the two boards, had any real idea. Some people thought it had something to do with a line of textbooks, but the details of the controversy had faded. In the present moment, most of the people involved with the two schools had nothing more than a vague but very settled prejudice against the other school. Nothing much to go on, but still . . . it was enough to go on.
Ah. You may want to know who the new headmasters are, as you have no doubt guessed that they have a part to play in the story that is about to be told. That is quite right, exactly right. Proper, in fact. Why wouldn’t you want to know?
Avery Wyman had moved from the east coast in order to take the job at Riverfront. He had been a Latin instructor at a start-up classical Christian school in Vermont for about seven years, and then had taken over as the interim headmaster there for two years while the school conducted a job search to replace their retiring founder. Avery had been cordially invited to apply for the position, but for a number of reasons he thought it would be best if he moved on.
He was a widower, and had been for about five years—his wife Sonya had died of breast cancer. Avery was done with his grieving, but he still hated being reminded, and so thought he should apply to other schools that were a fair distance away, as in hundreds of miles. He had applied to Riverfront on a whim and a long shot, and no one had been more astonished than he when he got an interview, and then when the interview had gone as well as it did.
The trip for the interview had not been long enough for him to check out churches, but he thought he could find something. He had been attending a PCA church in Vermont and Riverfront had two of those, one tiny OPC church, and an even tinier CREC church. Things should be okay.
He was in his mid-thirties, and had the build of a long distance runner. This was more than a coincidence because he would get up early most mornings and run long distances. He had a shock of dark hair that at first glance looked unkempt, but then further observation would reveal that it had in fact been combed. He had a MA in classical languages, and all of his administrative wisdom was the result of doing things wrong at the Vermont school for two years, and then fixing it. He was cheerful, intelligent, and easy to get along with.
Suzanne Healey had come from the other direction, from Northern California. She had been an English teacher at a well-established classical Christian school, and had then gotten her administrative experience serving as a part-time vice-principal there.
Her husband Bill had left her about ten years before. He had professed faith in Christ in order to be able to marry her, which she had gone ahead and done against her father’s better judgment, and partly against her own. There were no children, for which Suzanne was extremely grateful. While being ditched by a man is often an occasion for ongoing bitterness and hardening on the part of the woman so abandoned, this had not been the case with Suzanne. Bill had promptly moved in with an old high school girl friend, which had stung more than a little bit. But about two years after Bill had left, Suzanne had softened to the point where she sought her father’s forgiveness for ignoring his advice, and she even went to the extent of writing Bill a letter seeking his forgiveness for several high profile offenses she had been guilty of in a few of their fights. Suzanne was a pistol, and there had been several occasions when she had gone off unexpectedly. She had gotten a brusque thanks from Bill in an email. Two months later he was killed in a motorcycle accident.
Suzanne had been attending a Reformed Baptist congregation because she really liked the preaching, but she never joined. She had been baptized in infancy during her parents’ Episcopal phase, and even though they were attending a non-abominational church now, she still felt a strange reluctance about getting baptized again. So she couldn’t join or anything, but they always made her feel most welcome.
She had learned about the opening at Cornerstone from her cousin, who worked in the administrative offices there, and had encouraged her to apply. She had done so, and then, just like Avery, had been astonished at how smoothly everything had come together.