Excerpt One: Hillyer Rudisill
During the second and final year of Mr. Luddy’s tenure, one of the most formidable, flamboyant, and memorable of our school’s teachers arrived. This Charleston, South Carolina, native was a young man in his twenties named Hillyer Rudisill III. He taught history, English, and Latin and arrived at the school in a 1932 Super 8 Packard that barely made it over the Blue Ridge Mountains. Even recess duties resonated with his distinctive flair. Coolly smoking a cigar, warm spring days would find him attired in a white suit, broad-brimmed Panama hat, and an immutable aura of authority. Behind the lenses of his pince-nez, his piercing eyes missed nothing. He also knew every variation of every verb tense both in English and in Latin as well as every detail one could possibly want to know about history. This knowledge undoubtedly came from his vast reading. In fact, when he came to The Lexington School, Mr. Luddy offered to have the school pay for Mr. Rudisill’s books to be shipped to Lexington. Little did anyone know that Mr. Rudisill had 28 boxes of books!
Reading the homework was not enough in Mr. Rudisill’s class; recitation of facts was only the beginning. Students were expected to analyze the material and to have formed an opinion about what they had read. Mr. Rudisill expected all students to be able to articulate this opinion with precise details. It didn’t matter if an opinion was different from his; in fact, he seemed to prefer it that way. It was a great lesson that each person’s opinion mattered and was respected; interpretation was open to everyone. The key was for students to be able and willing to back up opinions with facts. If a student’s attention drifted from the task at hand, Mr. Rudisill could be an unerring marksman with an eraser. He was also never too busy to help any student whether in or out of class. When student Donnie Robinson ’63 found a Model A Ford that he wanted to buy, Mr. Rudisill drove over to inspect the car with him, carefully explaining along the way that, contrary to Donnie’s understanding, the phrase “Pay in Cash” did not mean that the advertised cost of $100 had to be in coins. The car still remains in Donnie Robinson’s barn. Alumni were - and still are - in awe of the inspiring Mr. Hillyer Rudisill III.