All boys. All boarding. Grades 9-12.
Woodberry Forest Mourns the Death of Roddey Dowd, Sr. ’50
Roddey Dowd, Sr. ’50 of Charlotte, North Carolina, died on September 30, 2017. Mr. Dowd, who was born July 18, 1932, was one of the Woodberry Forest School’s most loyal alumni and a member of the Walker Society. Mr. Dowd received the Distinguished Service Award in 1999, when he was recognized alongside his brother Frank Dowd, Jr., ’45, for their contributions to the school over many years, particularly in the area of residential life. The construction of Dowd-Finch and the renovation of Dowd House were made possible through contributions by the family, as was the building of Dowd Duplex, a faculty residence. Both men were sons of Frank Dowd of the Class of 1915.
After graduating from Woodberry, Mr. Dowd attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, graduating in 1954. He served on active duty in the US Army from 1955 to 1957 before rejoining the service in 1965. During this second tour in the Army, he earned his paratrooper wings and the green beret while serving with the Special Forces; he retired from the Army in 1968 as a captain. In 2013 the Department of the Army awarded Mr. Dowd the Outstanding Civilian Service Medal, recognizing five decades of devotion to the Army, including fundraising efforts on behalf of the Airborne and Special Operations Museum, stewardship of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, and advocacy during the Vietnam War on behalf of American prisoners of war held in North Vietnam.
Mr. Dowd devoted sixty-four years of his professional life to the Charlotte Pipe and Foundry Company, a family-run business started in 1901 by his grandfather. During his career, he held a wide range of senior executive positions. In addition to his devoted service to Woodberry, Mr. Dowd served on a wide variety of corporate and nonprofit boards in North Carolina, including the board of visitors at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and Winthrop University.
Mr. Dowd is survived by his wife, Elizabeth, known to her friends as Pepper. They had three children: Roddey, Jr. ’74, Anne, and Susan. Three of Mr. Dowd’s grandsons are Woodberry alumni: Roddey, III ’06, and Connor Barrett ’10.
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.