James Moubray Retires After Forty-Four Years

Since joining the staff in 1972, James was always happiest in the driver’s seat, steering a bus to an away game, hauling a group to a movie-mall trip, or carrying boys home from a mixer.  And coaches and boys were happiest when James was the one piloting them in the nicest bus in the Woodberry fleet.  He served as their honorary assistant coach and their most stalwart fan.  “James always had a good reason when we lost a game,” says Rick Hopkins ’87.  “It was never the Woodberry boys’ fault.”   

 

James grew up in a house on campus, the son of the golf course groundskeeper and brother of Bobby Moubray, who joined the staff in 1961 and retired in 2014.  He and his wife Jean, who worked in the dining hall, raised three children, Tammy, Scott, and Johnny.  She died in 2014.

 

With his heavy Virginia drawl, his signature mustache, and his dry sense of humor, James has developed a strong following among students.  More than 4,000 boys have come under his care in the locker room and on buses, and his reach extends to their family members who were comforted to know their sons were in his competent hands.  Two of those family members, the brother and father of Marvin Bush ’75, wrote letters of congratulations to James on his retirement.  Asked what he thought when he heard that two former US presidents had written to him, James said he was shocked that Marvin would arrange such a surprise. 

 

Marvin definitely remembers James.  And so does everyone else:  the truck drivers up and down the highways who talked with The Roadrunner on the CB, the opposing schools’ coaches and bus drivers who gathered around his bus to catch up, and maybe settle a friendly wager, and the present-day boys who named their Woodberry Cup team Moubray’s Mustangs after his beloved 2005 Ford. They all know and respect James Moubray. “So many of my best memories as a boy and a coach occurred on James's bus rolling through the Commonwealth late at night on our way back from somewhere in the Prep League,” says Headmaster Byron Hulsey ’86. “I'll never forget, and I'll always cherish those moments, those times razzing James and having him razz us in return.”

 

Even in retirement, James won’t be far away from the Forest or the driver’s seat.  He’s signed on to drive a shuttle for the Town of Orange Transit (TOOT); he’ll continue to drive a racecar at Eastside Speedway in Waynesboro; and when he needs a break from the road, he’ll be watching his favorite NASCAR driver, Matt Kenseth, on TV.  

 

And don’t be surprised to see him on the sidelines of Hanes Field or in the Dick Gym, rooting for his favorite team, his “good boys,” just as he has for decades.