When Western Reserve Academy marked its Centennial in 1926, attendance and enthusiasm were so robust that the floors of a packed Chapel rumbled, precipitating an evacuation of the premises during celebratory programming. Faculty master J. Frederick Waring described it saying, “Then President Robert E. Vinson of the University began the prayer. But the audience had begun to be slightly nervous. The old floor was creaking ominously under unaccustomed weight.” According to The Plain Dealer, “large irregular cracks in the pine trunks supporting the chapel were widening…President Vinson was praying.”
Yale of the West
We have always been a proud bunch, perhaps because Reserve has a remarkable story to tell. Forged in the Ohio wilderness of the Western Reserve, we were an educational outpost with aspiration built into our DNA. The main doors of the original campus buildings all faced west; there was nothing stunted about our zeal for new horizons on the land or in learning and life.
We were one of David Hudson’s final legacies, we were the “Yale of the West,” we would serve as a beacon of excellence and enlightenment. Though we didn’t call ourselves the Pioneers until the 1930s, we most certainly were trail blazers from the jump.
A Humblebrag
A social media series counting down to our Bicentennial kick off, informed by WRA historian, archivist and cerebral celebrity Tom Vince, compacts whole eras, whole movements, to digestible snippets for today’s audiences. This is a sign of our times — and a wonderful summary of our school — but the truth is, it’s next to impossible to boil ourselves down to a short story. At 198 years old, we have gravitas. Grappling with this — after all humility is a WRA hallmark — makes the celebration of our Bicentennial at worst, tricky. It’s like, “Look at us!” combined with “To boast is gauche.”
Celebrate with collective effervescence
But perhaps it is this mix of pride and humility, of hardscrabble and ascendance, of lovingly local and tenaciously global that has propelled us from there to here. We were a rugged wilderness, an abolitionist and orator, an observatory, a farm, wartime heroes, fabled faculty, first woman student, first woman head of school, closed down, opened up, immigrated to, exported from, lost in tragedies, buoyed by celebrations, vulnerable and resolute. Our stories are endearingly individual but beautifully collective, and now we get to celebrate in community, or, like Head of School Suzanne Walker Buck likes to say (with a nod to sociologist Émile Durkheim) with collective effervescence.
Let's all make a lasting impact
Over the next two years, let’s shake the Chapel floors again, metaphorically speaking of course, while embracing our dichotomies, sharing our memories, advancing our future, and (occasionally) thinking about what will be said about how we marked this moment by the people who look back on us two centuries from now. We have big shoes to fill, and exhilarating trails to blaze. Much is planned to put our proud stake in the ground for the next 200 years.
Oh long may time these things preserve.
Explore The WRA Bicentennial
What We've Done
A Spectacular Begining
On Monday, April 8 2024, on the turf of the WRA Stadium, the Western Reserve Academy community took in the extraordinary celestial spectacle of a total solar eclipse. This marked the beginning of the Bicentennial.
Share Your Story
Tell us your favorite story or memory of Western Reserve Academy. You can share how WRA has impacted your life, a special memory of a friend, a faculty member, a coach — a major sports victory or a standing ovation you can still remember — passing the Junior Writing Exam or pulling off the ultimate prank. What story you tell is your choice entirely. We can’t wait to hear it.