British students look forward to March trip to Front Royal

ASHBOURNE, UK – A group of students from the historic Queen Elizabeth’s Grammar School (circa 1585) in this small market town in the geographic center of England are in the midst of planning a trip to Randolph-Macon Academy next month.

Here’s where the author spent four years as a Queen Elizabeth Grammar School boarding stu-dent. The drafty building was built in 1585. Photos/Courtesy Queen Elizabeth Grammar

Richard Smith, a teacher and one of three teacher/ chaperones, told me a group of eight British children (equivalent 10th graders) would be arriving March 18 for a 10-day stay during which they would interface with R-MA students in classrooms and dorm rooms, visit Washington, D.C., and local sites such as Winchester, Luray Caverns and other parts of the Shenandoah Valley. The British group is comprised of six boys and two girls.

I met Smith, a tall, handsome, bearded man in his early 30s with a penchant for basketball, during a trip the England in January, where I visited the 400-year-old school that I attended as a boarder during the 1940s. In fact, I explained it was me, in concert with the now retired QEGS headmaster Dr. Roger Wilkes, and former R-MA president Maj. Gen. Henry M. (Mack) Hobgood, who proposed what turned out to be a decade long “international exchange program” between the two schools in 2001. My son was among the first R-MA students who visited his dad’s alma mater when I was president of the R-MA Parents’ Association.

And this is a 1946 school photo at the “new” (and present) school, which was built in 1910 – the author is among the pictured students, though at a loss as to where …

The Brits’ March visit, followed by a return trip to Ashbourne, Derbyshire, in June by students from Front Royal, represents a resumption of a highly successful “hands across the ocean” program which was interrupted by almost simultaneous administration changes at both schools about three years ago. Current R-MA President Brig. Gen. David Wesley and QEGS new head teacher Ms. Ann Martin agreed to reinstate the program this year. Several R-MA graduates, now in their mid to late twenties, continue to correspond or visit a decade later.

I asked Smith if he had any questions about Front Royal that I could perhaps answer. His first, as the rain pelted down outside on a typical British winter’s day, was: “What’s the weather like in Front Royal in March?”

I said, “Well, that depends” …