In my mind, Paul Raymond will always be the closest to a living Santa Claus.
I got an Alumni email last week with the sad news that Paul has passed away. The invitation to “Celebrate the Five Elements of Paul”, or “Paul Raymond Retirement Party” arrived two days ago. Today I got a link to this article:
Paul RAYMOND Co-founder, The Northwest School Paul Doney Raymond was born on January 3, 1932, and grew up in Manhattan, Kansas. An historian and educator, he had a profound influence on students over his 50-year high school teaching career in California and Washington. His extensive life experience, including his formative years during the Depression, his Korean War service, and his participation in the civil rights movement, informed his teaching and brought history to life for his students. He died on May 10, 2007, of complications from congestive heart failure, which were triggered by a sudden infection. Paul Raymond received his master’s degree in history and East Asian studies at the University of Oregon. He was offered a fellowship from Stanford University to pursue his doctorate but declined it because he needed to support a growing family. He started his teaching career at Midland School, a boys’ boarding school in Los Olivos, California. During his ten years at the school, he worked for Martin Luther King’s organization, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which inspired him to create Project Open Future (1965-1969), one of the country’s first college-preparatory summer programs for inner city youth. Most of the 500 boys recruited from Watts and East Los Angeles to study at Los Angeles area private schools continued on to four-year colleges (many the first in their families to do so), and distinguished careers. He continued his teaching career at Oakwood School and Newbridge School in California and Overlake School, Redmond, WA. In 1978, Paul joined colleagues Mark Terry and Ellen Taussig to found The Northwest School in Seattle, a college-preparatory school for grades 6 -12, which opened its doors in 1980. As its first director, Paul recruited other talented teachers who were equally inspired to create innovative programs, including an integrated humanities curriculum, an inquiry-based science approach, the integration of the arts, environmental stewardship, and the practice of “courtesy and common sense” in daily interactions. His vision and inspiration lives on and makes The Northwest School one of Seattle’s leading college-preparatory schools and a living monument to his commitment to both education and social justice. In addition to education, Paul Raymond was passionately devoted to issues of social justice, especially racial equality, equal opportunity, and peace. Among other activities, he led student trips to El Salvador to observe elections and to introduce students to countries in which people struggled for a better life. A Memorial Celebration of Paul’s Life will be held June 10, 6:00 - 8:00 p.m. at Town Hall. Paul Raymond is survived by Ellen Taussig, his loving wife of 28 years; his children, John, David, and Ani Raymond, Charles Raymond Katz, and Margaret Raymond Bailey; his grandchildren, Katie and Beckie Bailey, Sidney and Sam Katz; and a sister, Elizabeth Raymond Yapp. Those who wish to may honor Paul Raymond by making a donation to the Paul Raymond Endowed Financial Aid Fund at The Northwest School, 1415 Summit Avenue, Seattle, 98122, or to the School of the Americas Watch, PO Box 4566, Washington, D.C., 20017.
Published in print on 5/16/2007.
Have a wonderful retirement, you will be fondly missed.
Tags: memory, nws
This entry was posted
on Thursday, May 17th, 2007 at 1:46 am and is filed under Footprints + Diary.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Recent Comments