HARRY MCKAY FORMER HEADMASTER 1986–1990
My name is Harry McKay and I had the pleasure of serving as headmaster in the late 1980s. On Tuesday, October 17, 1989, at 5:04 p.m., I was sitting in my office finishing up some last- minute work when the Loma Prieta earthquake struck the region. I felt the initial movement of the earth and thought it was just another tremor. I’d felt them before because this was the fall of my third year of living in San Francisco and as headmaster here at Cathedral. Almost immediately, the bells in the South Tower of the Cathedral began to chime randomly, and I realized that was happening because of the swaying of the tower and not because of a programmed carillon. I knew then that this was the real thing and I immediately set out to find my own daughter, who was somewhere with her nanny walking home from preschool. Because of the traffic and the panic at the time, it took me one hour to drive the 10 blocks from Nob Hill to our apartment. Some of you remember that afternoon. I found my daughter and her nanny calmly playing games in our living room. My daughter was not frightened and neither was she at any time later on because the adult she was with remained calm and reassuring throughout those early minutes. Interestingly, we realized weeks later that children who fared quite well during this scare were with adults during the quake who remained calm, assuring, and loving. We experienced virtually no trauma among our students following the earthquake, and I’ve always attributed that to our exceptional parent community who managed themselves so well during those initial tense moments. I already had ample experience that Cathedral School truly lived out its Mission of creating a community bonded by open-hearted-
ness, hope, compassion, and concern for others. And once again, the school community stayed strong and cohesive throughout this ordeal, modeling those strong values we hoped to instill in our boys. The afternoon of the quake, the professional who managed the School’s extended-day program calmly assured the boys that all would be fine. As we had some parents trapped on the Bay Bridege and others who were unable to get in contact until very late that evening, a few of our extended-day staff even took students home with them until the families of those students could be contacted. Some of our families living in the Marina suffered extensive damage to their homes and our Parents Association immediately mobilized to support them in any way possible. Not surprisingly, we became a community very focused on supporting one another for the ensuing weeks. I will also mention that the quake occurred during the height of the AIDS epidemic in San Francisco. While some religious groups met that reality with disdain or judgment, the strong leadership of Grace Cathedral set the inspirational tone that was needed in the city at that time. The pain of that disease had already been felt in the school a couple of times before the earthquake struck. But a community already vigorously living out its founding mission also managed those events with compassion, grace, and love. For 60 years, this excep- tional institution has unwaveringly carried out the mission that Canon Forbes so eloquently described in his remarks. I am still so proud to have been a part of this jewel and I offer my best wishes for its success as it continues to nurture the minds, hearts, hands, and voices of tomorrow’s leaders in the Bay Area.
MICHAEL FERREBOEUF FORMER HEADMASTER 1999–2015
Good evening. I’m Michael Ferreboeuf, former headmaster here at the Cathedral School. Lift every voice and sing till Earth and heaven ring, ring with the harmonies of liberty. I don’t remember if I heard that song during my very first Hymn Sing at Cathe- dral School back in 1991 when I was applying for the position of Upper School Head. I heard it many, many times over the course of my 24 years at the School. There is a wideness in God’s mercy like the wideness of the sea. There is a kindness in its justice that is more than liberty.
On Friday mornings, (the hymns) were called out as numbers: 599, 469, and there were always more. They were words we sang together, and singing together is the most subversive and powerful kind of education. The words, through their melody, becoming ingrained in us. Community and unison. The individual absorbed in the communion of classmates, brothers, teachers, and mentors —friend and foe alike. In Hymn Sing, as well as in Lower and Upper School chapels, we listened to one another in song and in prayer. And it made us stronger, kinder, compassionate, and
more understanding. It was what and who we are as an institution of what Episcopal education is meant to be. And always more. To be more and to be about the more of us, and the many of us, and the each of us in a diverse and changing world that needs us to be fully part of it, to respond to it, to represent it, and to teach it. There is a wideness in God’s mercy. Lift every voice and sing. There is kindness in its justice ‘til Earth and heaven ring with the harmonies of liberty. May we continue to lift our voices always and sing it out together.
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