All boys. All boarding. Grades 9-12.
Woodberry Bids Farewell to Mark Beall
After over thirty years at Woodberry Forest School, Mark Beall, assistant maintenance manager, retired on March 31, 2017. For most of those three decades, he served as the waterworks operator, pumping and filtering the 45,000 gallons of water the campus uses each day, ensuring its safety whether it was destined for the water pitchers at seated meals, the school’s two swimming pools, or laundering Moubray wear.
Mark’s expertise and contributions were recognized in 2009, when the Environmental Protection Agency presented him with its Professional Operator Excellence award, and in 2015, when he was presented with the A. Colquitt Shackelford Jr. Senior Master’s Award at graduation.
A Maryland native, Mark settled in Virginia after high school, working for the University of Virginia. When he came to Woodberry in 1986, he served as the first staff member to maintain the Barbee Center. He holds master certifications in plumbing and HVAC.
In retirement, he hopes to be able to be more available to his family and his band. He and his wife, Janis, an ophthalmic technician, are the grandparents of four. And for over thirty years, he’s played bass fiddle for the old-time string band Uncle Henry’s Favorites. The band appeared on public radio’s A Prairie Home Companion in 1999 and traveled to Gainsborough, England, in February as the headliner at a music festival attended by British fans of American old-time music.
On Mark’s final day at work, his co-workers gathered to bid him farewell, presenting him with a photo collage featuring the iconic water tower he worked with daily, and a violin signed by every maintenance office member.
See photos in the Woodberry Forest Photo Album.
Woodberry Forest School is an exceptional private school community for high school boys in grades nine through twelve. It is one of the top boarding schools in the United States and one of the only all-boys, all-boarding schools in the country.
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Woodberry Forest admits students of any race, color, sexual orientation, disability, religious belief, and national or ethnic origin to all of the rights, privileges, programs, and activities generally accorded or made available to students at the school. It does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, sexual orientation, disability, religious belief, or national or ethnic origin in the administration of its educational policies, admissions policies, scholarship and loan programs, and athletic or other school-administered programs. The school is authorized under federal law to enroll nonimmigrant students.