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News & Photos
Will People Write About Us When We Are Gone?
History teacher Dave Harley reflects on the significant and profound loss of iconic former colleagues Marty McKibbin and Robin Coblentz.
Over the course of the last month, those of us of a certain age and from a certain period of McDonogh history suffered a great loss.
Two McDonogh people of almost mythic status passed away within a couple of weeks of each other. Say to those of us of that age and of that period the name "Marty," and we automatically think of Marty McKibbin. Say the name "Robin," and we think of Robin Coblentz.
In Homeric Greece and medieval Iceland, they wrote songs and told stories to pass on to future generations the deeds of the heroes. It seems, therefore, incumbent upon those of us of that age and period to pass on to the younger and the more recent some knowledge of the models that these two provided us, the contributions that they made to the school, the sense of loss that we feel, and the loss to the McDonogh that overspreads the past, present, and future.
Both made huge contributions to what we and the institution are today and will be tomorrow.
Marty was a teacher and a coach in a period when all of the teachers coached. And he was the best of both. He was the chairman of the History Department and made it much of what it is today. He was the conscience of the school. In his later years he took on the second year of a two-year AP U.S. History course, and his students received more than sixty [highest scores of] fives within a three-year period. He ate tomatoes and read Time Magazine in the bathtub, never came to dinner, jogged around campus, and went through the ice to save his dog from the boat race pond.
In my first two years at school, Robin and her husband Dick would invite me down to play bridge every week and to do my wash between hands. They were certainly my family away from my home in Ohio. Robin taught in the Middle School after Dick became too ill to teach, even though it was not until the pool was built and she could teach Lower School swimming that the athletic director would allow her to be hired. She moved from Finney to Lyle as she became Director of Admissions and was a force in the arrival of coeducation at McDonogh. After McDonogh she was an editor of the papers of Dwight Eisenhower, a traveler, a reader, a collector of antiques, the owner of a beautiful house in Bolton Hill and then an apartment in Roland Park, and a woman of true class.
Both were heroes to us and to the school; both provided models to which many of us continue to aspire. Memories of their deeds should live on in the consciousness of the school and its people. Those of us of that certain age and from that certain period of McDonogh history miss them greatly.
Will people write songs and tell stories about us when we are gone?
History teacher Dave Harley reflects on the significant and profound loss of iconic former colleagues Marty McKibbin and Robin Coblentz.
Over the course of the last month, those of us of a certain age and from a certain period of McDonogh history suffered a great loss.
Two McDonogh people of almost mythic status passed away within a couple of weeks of each other. Say to those of us of that age and of that period the name "Marty," and we automatically think of Marty McKibbin. Say the name "Robin," and we think of Robin Coblentz.
In Homeric Greece and medieval Iceland, they wrote songs and told stories to pass on to future generations the deeds of the heroes. It seems, therefore, incumbent upon those of us of that age and period to pass on to the younger and the more recent some knowledge of the models that these two provided us, the contributions that they made to the school, the sense of loss that we feel, and the loss to the McDonogh that overspreads the past, present, and future.
Both made huge contributions to what we and the institution are today and will be tomorrow.
Marty was a teacher and a coach in a period when all of the teachers coached. And he was the best of both. He was the chairman of the History Department and made it much of what it is today. He was the conscience of the school. In his later years he took on the second year of a two-year AP U.S. History course, and his students received more than sixty [highest scores of] fives within a three-year period. He ate tomatoes and read Time Magazine in the bathtub, never came to dinner, jogged around campus, and went through the ice to save his dog from the boat race pond.
In my first two years at school, Robin and her husband Dick would invite me down to play bridge every week and to do my wash between hands. They were certainly my family away from my home in Ohio. Robin taught in the Middle School after Dick became too ill to teach, even though it was not until the pool was built and she could teach Lower School swimming that the athletic director would allow her to be hired. She moved from Finney to Lyle as she became Director of Admissions and was a force in the arrival of coeducation at McDonogh. After McDonogh she was an editor of the papers of Dwight Eisenhower, a traveler, a reader, a collector of antiques, the owner of a beautiful house in Bolton Hill and then an apartment in Roland Park, and a woman of true class.
Both were heroes to us and to the school; both provided models to which many of us continue to aspire. Memories of their deeds should live on in the consciousness of the school and its people. Those of us of that certain age and from that certain period of McDonogh history miss them greatly.
Will people write songs and tell stories about us when we are gone?