Description:
The Silver Tray tells the story of the headmaster of a small Southern day and boarding school in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and his difficulty convincing the trustees that changes in the school's direction are needed.
Brief description: A native of Waynesboro, Georgia, David E. Wood, Sr. enrolled in Battle Ground Academy in Franklin, Tennessee, as a freshman boarding student in the fall of 1950. After graduating from BGA, he majored in History at Davidson College and later obtained an M.A. in School Administration from Middle Tennessee State University.After serving as an officer in U.S. Army Intelligence, he returned to BGA to teach and coach from 1959 to 1961. From 1961 to 1976, he was associated with the Office of Undergraduate Admissions at Vanderbilt University, serving the last twelve years as Director. He then started a thirty-year career in independent school administration, associated with five southern schools, serving as headmaster of four of them: UMS Preparatory School in Mobile; Harpeth Hall School in Nashville; St. Andrew's Episcopal School in Jackson, Mississippi; and Randolph School in Huntsville, Alabama. He also served as Head of Upper School at Pace Academy in Atlanta.Over the years, he has enjoyed playing piano music from the 1920s to the 1950s for seniors, doing so up to 450 times and counting.In 2010, he collaborated with illustrator Ben Johnson to publish a children's book, The Crooked Tree, which he has read to over a thousand young people.He and his wife, Margie, had two children, David Jr. and Margaret. He presently lives in Franklin with his wife, Marietta Eggleston Burleigh.
Review Quotes:
An eminently readable story that takes the reader into the unseen world of American Preparatory Schools. One is drawn in early and interest only deepens as the story unfolds. John Davis Fraser, Franklin, Tennessee