Obit newton south high school 1960s1/19/2024 They lived in the South Strafford home where Barbara, who served as the longtime secretary at The Newton School, grew up. Murray first taught math at Tunbridge Elementary School before taking the job at The Newton School. “We had kind of a busy life up there,” Barbara Murray said.Īfter Murray graduated with a bachelor of science degree in elementary education in 1963, the family returned to the White River Valley. The family lived in a three-room apartment and got around in a Morris 850 with 10-inch tires. The Murrays welcomed their daughter, Jody, in 1961. Bill, and served as captain of the baseball team. The family moved to Lyndonville, Vt., where Murray attended what was then Lyndon State College, through a G.I. That stint, which involved training Chinese spies to use radios and radio codes, was the only time he lived outside his home state, his son said.Ī couple years after returning to Vermont, in 1958, he and Barbara Mobus, of South Strafford, married. He later served for two years in the Army during the Korean War as a high-speed radio operator stationed in Okinawa, Japan. At one point, he even went to a regional tryout for the then-Brooklyn Dodgers.Īfter graduating from high school in 1953, he and his brother, George, built and ran Sandy’s, a drive-in diner along Route 14 in Sharon. Though Murray was small in stature at 5-foot-6, he was athletic and played catcher on South Royalton High School’s baseball team, which ran up a 20-game winning streak. Murray, he was from a bygone era as a teacher and even as a Strafford icon.” “He was acting as kind of a guide, saying, ‘Oh, this road used to come over this way a little bit,’ ” Emerson said. Murray pointed out places where he and his father had shot deer when he was young. Rhett Emerson, a former student of Murray’s, spent a day last summer with Murray and fellow longtime Strafford resident John Freitag driving around the area of Tunbridge where Murray grew up. Murray, the youngest son of George and Anna (Nichols) Murray, was born in the neighboring town of Tunbridge on the family farm on June 12, 1935. “It was odd in a way” to have his dad as his school principal and teacher, Mike Murray, who graduated from The Newton School, which was then K-8, in 1973, said, but “it also seemed pretty normal in that sort of community where everybody knew each other anyway.” 17 at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, also taught middle school science and math, coached children’s baseball and basketball teams, served on the town’s fire department, mowed the town’s ball fields in the summer and served on the town’s cemetery commission. Murray, who died at the age of 87 of COVID-19 complications on Dec. Taking on such tasks as a matter of course was Murray’s way. It allowed the characters to “make this grand entrance on the raft,” Hawkins said. He got to work in what was then a bus garage on school grounds and enlisted some of the students in the raft’s creation. In Hawkins’ recollection, Murray said, “You can’t really do Tom Sawyer without a raft.”Īnd Murray said, “Alright, I’ll make a raft,” as if she’d twisted his arm. Murray, who served as the South Strafford school’s principal from 1965-1993, didn’t direct the productions but was supportive of them, Hawkins said. Joey Hawkins, who worked as a middle school teacher at The Newton School for 30 years starting in 1983, recalled a middle school production of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. SOUTH STRAFFORD - Robert Murray had a gruff communication style, but everyone at The Newton School, where he served as principal for 28 years, and in the community, where he served in numerous volunteer roles, recognized that he cared.
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