Brookfield Academy's Inaugural Class Returns to Celebrate 50th Year

In 1962 Brookfield Academy's first headmaster, William Beye Smeeth, led the inaugural class of 33 students and six teachers in reciting the Pledge of Allegience around the Founders Hall flagpole.

Fifty years later, Smeeth was back at the same flagpole Friday reciting the pledge — but this time he was joined by 906 students and about 100 faculty members plus alumni.

It was a fitting mix of old and new, progress and tradition — something that has marked the college preparatory school's first half-century in Brookfield.

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The 4K-12th grade school now serves students stretching from Hartford to East Troy, Oconomowoc to Mequon. 

As light rain ended and skies cleared, kicked off a yearlong celebration of its 50th anniversary with its annual Founders Day assembly. A speech, refreshments and campus tours led way to Friday evening's Founders Fest games, music, food and fireworks, followed by alumni events Saturday. The year's theme is "Inspired by Our Past. Focusing on Our Future."

There were tears, laughs and much reminiscing as some of the original 33 students returned to campus to celebrate.

Families forge new school

Alumnus Tom Davis told Friday's assembly that he was nine years old and in the fourth grade when the Academy of Basic Education opened its doors in 1962 as a grades 1-8 school (renamed Brookfield Academy in 1978).

"I once stood in your spot and I mean that. Literally. In your spot right there, exactly 50 years ago today," Davis told the students who filled the courtyard.

"(There were) five other students in my class, three of whom are here today — Bill Jacobs, Bill Law and Tom Smeeth," Davis said.

It was, in some ways, a family affair. A dozen children alone came from the founding families of the Smeeths, Laws and Davises. Many went on to graduate and send their own children to Brookfield Academy and serve on its Board of Directors. Some alumni have returned to teach.

"Those were the best days for me, the formative days, the days that would shape my life into who I am, even today," Davis told students. 

Memories of the first years

He recalled "the hours of penmanship practice on German-ruled paper" and his fifth-grade French teacher who "claimed not to understand or speak English but always seemed to be able to understand us."

He remembered creation of the first football team. Moving into the first high school while it was still under construction. Practicing basketball in classrooms because the gym wasn't yet built.

"I remember when McCoy's hardware store blew up — and we got a football field from it," he said, drawing laughs.

In Davis' senior year the academy hired a young coach, Robert Solsrud, who helped athletic teams win championships in the Indian Trails conference.

Solsrud went on to become Brookfield Academy's third (and current) Head of School. Davis is headmaster at another independent private K-12 school, Wichita Collegiate School in Kansas.

Solsrud on Friday thanked the founding families for the "spirit and courage they displayed to forge a school that has survived and thrived for 50 years. They were willing to take a risk against long odds."

Davis held up his old academy letter jacket and in a symbolic gesture, it was passed from his mother, Betty Davis, to the former Head of Schools to B.J. Law, chairman of the Board of Directors and placed over the shoulders of a new student, first grader Allie Heib, 6.

"May the tradition continue now and for the next 50 years," Davis said. "Keep this impossible dream alive. May God bless us, our parents, our teachers and our beloved country."

After the assembly, alums huddled over a photo snapped on the first day in 1962. The yellowed photo showed girls donned in dresses and boys in polos or shirts with ties.

Then they posed for photos in the same spot.