2009-2010 Annual Report - Wayland Academy

10
Wayland Story: Past, Present, and
Future was aired on Channel 10
WMVS-TV. In 1967 the venerable
Alton E. Wichman retired, bringing to
an end 45 years of dedicated service
to the Academy. During his years at
the school, he served as a history
teacher, Dean of Boys, Dean of
Guidance, acting headmaster, and
local historian. At the 1969
Commencement exercises, A.E.
Wichman was presented the
Distinguished Service Citation,
honoring his 45 years of service to
the school.
Patterson resumed his role at
Wayland in 1960 and continued his
success in attracting the greats with
speakers, sports camps, and other
lecture series throughout his
administration. In the spring of 1966,
Wisconsin Governor Warren
Knowles, U.S. Senator Bill Proxmire,
and Representative Melvin Laird
(whose son was a student) spoke on
campus. In the spring of 1967, the
All-American Sports Camp was
announced. Marquette University
coach Al McGuire headed the
coaches’ clinic, which included John
Wooden of UCLA, Bud Foster of
Wisconsin, Adolph Rupp of
Kentucky, Dave Strack of Michigan,
Ray as a member of the basketball team (#21)
and John Erickson of Wisconsin.
One-hundred twenty boys attended
the camp. The following year would
attract Nick Bollettieri, a famous
tennis professional from Florida.
Bollettieri would later go on to
international fame as Andre Agassi’s
personal coach.
The Milwaukee Bucks announced
that they would hold their rookie
training camp and tryouts at the Field
House in 1969. The camp was to be
conducted by head coach Larry
Costello and his assistant, Tom
Nissalke, Wayland class of 1951, and
former teacher and coach at the
Academy. Nissalke would go on to
become a successful head coach in
the NBA.
Meanwhile, for the last ten years of
his administration, Patterson
encouraged a new lecture series
called “Man and His World.” Seniors
were required to attend and take
notes. There were two lectures per
year delivered by college professors
and deans from Midwest colleges and
universities and Princeton University.
The public was also invited. This
move reflected Patterson’s philosophy
of education, which stressed the need
to channel young people on
appropriate lines while
listening to and responding to
their needs as adolescents.
Patterson’s philosophy
stressed three fundamental
goals: one, education should
have a sense of history; two,
students should be encouraged
to be creative; three, the
school needed a solid sense of
morality. He strove to include
the voice and interest of the
students as much as possible,
yet his sense of the need for
change in the 1960’s was
balanced with the belief that
all experiments and
innovations must be measured
against “strong and sturdy
directional lines to be used as
common bonds of
understanding among faculty
and students.” He was a perfect blend
of liberalism and conservatism at a
time when the country and world
were experiencing what Dr. William
J. McCutcheon, former Wayland
pastor and Wayland historian, has
appropriately termed “turbulence.”