Birmingham University School Alumni Recall Feeling of Family

More than 200 alumni, faculty and friends gathered for the centennial celebration of Birmingham University School (B.U.S.) Sept. 10. The school was formed in 1922 to provide college preparation for the sons of the families driving Birmingham’s rapid physical, financial and cultural growth. In 1975 it was joined with the Brooke Hill School to form The Altamont School, which hosted this month’s celebration.

The event included a vintage car exhibit, dinner, dancing, and addresses by Altamont Head of School Cecil Stodghill, dinner host Bruce Denson, and B.U.S. Centennial Chairperson Tim Callahan. “We had an overwhelmingly positive response from all who attended,” Callahan said. “They seemed to leave with a sweet taste in their mouth, having experienced a night of joy.”

The centennial celebration required a year of planning that included Altamont Alumni Specialist Allison Abney’s development of a website dedicated to the school’s history and legacy. Volunteer Amanda Davis contributed extensive historical research and writing for that project. Historian Chris Thomas created a film— Legacy: A Century of B.U.S.— that he premiered at the celebration. That kind of devoted collaboration was a feature of the school itself, Callahan said. Speaking in the film, he recalled that the “contribution by volunteering parents, and by teachers who would stay after school to put on this or that, debate team, glee club, or Troubadors,” was essential for a school that often struggled for funding and staff.

Family

Distinguished guests included Frank Marshall, who joined the school’s English faculty in 1957 and served as Headmaster 1963-68. “The whole thing was an absolute joy to me from the time I started,” he said. B.U.S. allowed him to use reading lists and programs he had not been able to use in public schools, and the small size of B.U.S. allowed something like panel discussions of books. “That takes time,” he said, “but it pays off.”

Marshall recalled that the school grew significantly in those years, in reputation as well as enrollment, partly as a result of this renewed emphasis on academic challenge. “We had some wonderful students at B.U.S. in those years,” he said. Later in life, one of those students helped save his vision when others saw no way to prevent Marshall’s growing blindness. His former student, physician Michael Callahan, offered hope and medical expertise. “I’m so grateful to him for saving my sight," Marshall said.

Mort Jordan attended B.U.S. starting in seventh grade and graduated in 1962, at the start of the school’s significant growth through the next decade. He lamented experiencing only one year of legendary coach Phil Mulkey, who passed away the week after celebration attendees recalled the coach’s positive influence on their lives. “The one-year experience with Mulkey was totally invaluable, but I didn’t realize it at the time,” Jordan said. “I never thought I’d be able to run a mile a day, which we had to do. I finally got to the point of having a lot of pride in physical fitness.”

Physical fitness was part of the school’s focus on the whole person, but it was also essential for team sports. “The most I ever had in my class, in any given class year, was 13,” Jordan said. Students were athletes because everybody was needed. So, he laughed, he was a 145-pound tackle on the football team, and a 190-pound classmate was viewed as “Godzilla.” “We tried our best,” Jordan said, echoing other alumni at the celebration. “We weren’t very good, but we put everything into it.”

With such a small population, it was easy for the students to become close. “I looked at the school as family,” Jordan said. Even after he graduated, he often returned to cheer on that family as the school made a name for itself in track and basketball. “I was proud of them,” he said, “and it’s a pride that has carried on, a pride for both the kids who went there and for the school itself.”

That pride led Jordan and hundreds of others to attend the centennial celebration, and to raise more than $200,000 for a B.U.S. Scholarship fund at The Altamont School. Fifty years after B.U.S. became part of Altamont, they honor its legacy by helping new generations of students find a school community that feels like family.