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The entire community observed Founder's Day on Friday, October 9. Headmaster Charlie Britton's remarks follow.

I welcome all of you here this morning on Founders’ Day. For those of you who are new to the Founders’ Day tradition, each year, in October, members of the McDonogh School community honor and celebrate the life of John McDonogh, whose vision and whose resources helped found this great school.

As many of you know, John McDonogh was not simply a man out to build an empire of wealth. He had much greater aspirations, which included building a school for orphans. Many of you have read John McDonogh’s Rules for Living. They are etched here in this monument, which pays tribute to his life. They are rules that have stood the test of time and are relevant in this modern age, where more than ever, we need a foundation to live by.

I think about John McDonogh often. His portrait hangs in my office. When I drive up Shell road I see his monument. And sometimes, when I am in search of inspiration or an answer to a complex situation, I walk here to his grave site and read his rules for living; rules which ask us to live a good and productive life helping ourselves and others.

So often, however, people want to live a life of goodness but fail to recognize what lies within them and fail to recognize a helping hand when they are in trouble. I think about the other night, when Emmanuel Yeboah spoke to us–how he needed help and asked for it to courageously overcome a handicap and a cultural stigma. He realized he could not change the world alone and needed a helping hand. That made all the difference. This, however, is a story of a good person who lost his way, and failed to recognize that sometimes the greatest strength is understanding when we need to ask for help.

Harold was one of those kids who had a mustache at the age of twelve. When the rest of us still had high, squeaky voices, Harold was the baritone, the one who sang the low notes in the choir, the one everyone mistook for a high school student when the rest of us were mere “middle schoolers.”

Harold grew up in poverty. His mother waited tables at a hamburger joint, and when you ordered a vanilla milk shake, instead of writing “vanilla”, she would write, “vinila.”

But Sandra, Harold’s mother was sweet. She worked hard, she was polite, and she did her best to raise her two sons with goodness in mind–including making both her boys sing in the church choir. Unfortunately, her husband, Jim, wasn’t so upright.

Jim had been shot in a hunting accident in the late 1950’s. He walked with a limp, and was a lobsterman who spent more time on shore with a bottle than offshore making money. For several years, a man named Cliff Brewer, and a father figure to Harold’s father, had tried to help Jim get off the bottle. It never happened.

Harold was my friend even though he was no stranger to mischief. I remember one time after school, I went to his house. I had never been. That was because nearly every day Harold would follow my brother and me home. My mother would fix us a snack after school. Thinking back, she would always give Harold whatever he wanted to eat. Now I know why. She was worried that he didn’t have enough to eat at home – and this was her way of making sure that Harold had a solid meal.

When I visited Harold’s house, and you can put “house” in quotes: the place was ramshackle. It was a tiny home with a sagging roof, warped floors, and a moldy smell. And it was a mess. Papers strewn all over the floor. Dishes in a yellowing sink in the kitchen. Harold asked if I wanted anything to eat. I was twelve years old and I didn’t know what to say. “Come here,” he said. So I followed him to the refrigerator. Inside, were three or four boiled lobsters and not much else. We ate cold lobster on paper plates sitting at the kitchen table.

On the island, I grew up with poverty around me. But I never really thought about it much until that day. My family had a warm and spacious house, plenty of food to eat, and lots of books to read. I had parents who had every intention of sending their five children to college. Harold had virtually nothing. Dirt poor.

Harold was always a kid in search of attention. A couple of years later, during his eighth grade year, he did something absolutely crazy. (I am going to tell you this story, so please do not attempt something stupid. Don’t go home and say that Mr. Britton is encouraging crazy acts.)

Some of you may remember a celebrity named Evel Knievel; he was a daredevil who used to do crazy stunts like leap 42 buses on his motorcycle or try to zoom across the width of the Grand Canyon in a rocket car with a parachute attached. Evel Knievel was always breaking bones, landing on his head and suffering concussions.

Well, Harold, who prided himself a daredevil, decided that at the age of fourteen, he was going to leap across the school pond on his old banana bike. He was going to build a plywood ramp and sail across the width of the pond which was about thirty feet. He was going to start at the top of the hill next to the Civil War monument, and get enough speed going so that he would hit the ramp and zoom across to the other bank like Evel Knievel Junior.

In those days, if you wanted to do something like that on the Island of Southport, Maine, nobody was going to dissuade you, as long as you weren’t planning to kill someone or yourself. Well, news of Harold’s stunt grew. People on the island were talking about it, and then The Boothbay Register, the local paper, ran an announcement that Harold would be trying to jump the Southport School pond on a Wednesday night in May.

When the day came for Harold’s jump, nearly the whole town was there to watch. Harold had on a football helmet, gloves, and was firmly planted on his bike at the top of the hill. People were silent, and off he went.

Well, he hit the ramp going as hard as you can go on a rusted banana bike, and then he was flying in the air above the pond. But it was like he was slapped by an invisible hand, and halfway to the opposite bank, Harold and his bike went nearly straight down, gravity working its magic, and he landed in the water with a sickening splash.

Harold wasn’t hurt... He tried to jump the pond to great fanfare. He failed. He only made it halfway, and now I can’t help think that that jump serves as a metaphor for his life. Sure, gravity pulled him down, and his stunt failed, but there were people willing to cheer for him and, yes, pull him up by giving him opportunities. But Harold had a lot going against him. Poverty, an alcoholic father, and little education. And now he is the ruin of a friend that I knew.

Harold set a big goal–jumping across that pond. Many would say an impossible goal. Harold chose a goal that he could only do alone, and when he didn’t make it, he failed to see the support that was present from everyone in the community. Tragically, he stayed alone.

Set big goals, like Harold. However, don’t ever think that you are alone in this world. Always remember that there are people in your life ready to help you meet your challenges.

I look at all of you. You have so much of the world in front of you. You have others willing to help. How privileged we are at McDonogh. I hope that our great jumps in life carry us to the other edge of the pond. And I hope, on this Founder’s Day, that if our jumps fail, that we are smart enough to accept those helping hands that so willingly reach out.