Officials laud new Bapst headmaster choice

BANGOR – John Bapst Memorial High School officials are delighted with the outcome of their search for a new head of school.

Melville G. MacKay III was the board’s unanimous choice, according to Chairman Andrew Hamilton’s letter to the school community.

MacKay, who will assume the post in July, will succeed the school’s current headmaster, Landis Green, who has accepted an offer to lead Wildwood School in Los Angeles.

“[MacKay’s] a very experienced headmaster and teacher, and his educational background is extraordinary,” said Joanne Yestramski, co-chairman of the search committee and chief financial officer and treasurer of the University of Maine System.

Jim Stoneton, a Bangor real estate agent who also served on the head-hunting panel, agreed.

“I am extremely pleased that we were able to get Mel,” Stoneton said. “He’s highly regarded and well recommended, and he’s a man who does everything well and successfully.”

“We’re very, very fortunate to get someone of his caliber,” he said, adding that he was struck by “how deeply [MacKay] cares about students.”

Bapst officials also were enthusiastic about the MacKay family’s connections to Maine.

MacKay and his wife, Laura, own a house in Searsmont. One of their three children, 21-year-old Gordon, is a student at Unity College.

They also have a 17-year-old son, Tim, currently attending Indian Springs School in Alabama, and a 19-year-old daughter, Scout, who is a teaching intern in Costa Rica.

The MacKays, in fact, could not be reached for comment this week because they were in Costa Rica visiting with Scout.

However, the new headmaster did offer the following comments upon accepting the job offer:

“The qualities I’ve seen in the students, staff, board members and supporters of John Bapst are exactly the ones I had hoped to see: a passion for excellence in education and a commitment to make a difference in the world. It will be an honor to serve this wonderful school.”

He said that, for him, “education is synonymous with optimism.”

“So besides having that kind of strong background with his academic and leadership experience, he also has this strong connection to Maine,” Yestramski said.

Hamilton, the other co-chairman of the search committee, said the school enlisted the aid of Jerry Larson, a search consultant with Educational Directions Inc. of Portsmouth, R.I.

The search committee began with a pool of about 18 candidates for the post, Hamilton said. That group was winnowed to four hopefuls, three of whom were interviewed.

The remaining two finalists were invited to Bangor earlier this month for separate community forums, each drawing 50 to 100 people, Hamilton said.

In addition, he said, members of the Bapst school community were invited to provide feedback via the school’s Web site. He said about 40 people, including two students, weighed in the high-tech way.

“I’m very pleased with the process being so inclusive, with the community forums and opportunities for faculty, staff and students and other constituents to be able to meet [the finalists],” Yestramski said.

MacKay will come to John Bapst with an extensive background in independent school teaching and administration, according to Hamilton.

MacKay holds a master’s degree in English education from the University of North Carolina and a bachelor’s in English from Harvard University.

A former Fulbright scholar, MacKay has 24 years of classroom experience under his belt, as well as experience as an academic dean, dean of faculty and department chairman. He has spent the last five years as director of the Indian Springs School in Indian Springs, Ala.

Like John Bapst, the Alabama school is private. It does, however, have a residential component, which Bapst does not have.

Located at 100 Broadway, John Bapst is a private, co-educational college preparatory high school with an enrollment of about 470 students.

Others who served on the search committee besides Hamilton, Stoneton and Yestramski were Scott Burgess, Marcia Diamond, Colleen Grover, the Rev. Jim Haddix, Chuck Hewett, Ernie Kilbride and Lisa Leonard. Virginia Hussey of the Bapst office staff supported the committee’s work.