On Friday we celebrated the 100th birthday of the school’s founder, Mrs Kay Awty. It was a real privilege to welcome many distinguished guests to the school to join us for the celebrations, including Mrs Awty’s son (Mr Sandy Awty), the school’s first Proviseur (Mr Roger Truchi), and the Director of the Mission Laïque Française, Mr Jean-Christophe Deberre.
We began the celebrations in The Globe with the 5th Grade and CM2 students performing a beautiful rendition of the Awty Spirit Song. After the short performance, I introduced Mr Sandy Awty to the students and invited him to say a few words to the students. It was a memorable experience to hear Mr Awty recall some memories of his mother and the great work she did to establish the school, as well as her special love for the younger students.
Following the performance, we had a quick tour of the Primary School, focussing especially on a display that our students had prepared of Kumba, the goat that the school
had in the early years. Kumba was quite a character it seems , and provided great raw material for a wide variety of legends (that alumni swear are true) such as when Kumba ate students’ homework, walked across the road repeatedly to go to church, and so on.
By mid-morning we had assembled a magnificent gathering of retired faculty and staff who had been associated with Awty at the time the school moved from its second
site to the current location, then an abandoned factory and warehouse site. Some of our guests had not been back to Awty for more than 20 years, and many of them had travelled long distances to join us. There was a true sense of wonder as the group assembled in the boardroom of the new Levant Foundation Building, swapping stories about how tough life had been in the late 70s and early 80s compared with the excellent facilities available today – a view that was confirmed as the group later toured the campus under the direction of some of our student ambassadors.
One of the true stars among our visitors was Mr Roger Truchi, who had been the school’s first Proviseur. Now a sprightly 82-year old, Mr Truchi had flown in from France especially to be with us for the day. Back in 1976 he had established L’école française de Houston in a small
apartment. By 1977 L’école française had grown to 35 students, and negotiations began with Mrs Awty to merge with The Awty School in order to increase the profile of French education in Houston and decrease the administrative cost burden. Mrs Awty readily agreed to the proposal, immediately seeing the great potential benefits that a truly international school might bring for students in Houston. As she wrote in 1980, “the educational impact of educational exchange on a daily basis is a priceless and unlisted curriculum course at Awty”.
As a result of the coming together of the two schools, the Awty Board and the MLF (Mission Laïque Française) each agreed to provide $1.5 million towards the purchase of the property where the school is now located, and Mr Truchi became the first Proviseur of the French Bilingual Section at Awty under the headship of
Mr William Awty. It was the beginning of a great partnership between Awty and the MLF that has blossomed over the years to create the fabulous international school that we now have at Awty – the largest international school campus in the US.
Our celebrations continued throughout the day on Friday. At midday, all the students from the Middle School gathered in the sunshine on the north soccer field for a special photograph with our distinguished guests. The students assembled themselves in place to mark out the word “Awty!, singing a rousing if occasionally improvised rendition of “Happy Birthday” while the photo was being taken from the roof of the new Levant Foundation Building, the VIPs comprising the dot of the
exclamation mark.
Our visitors were treated to various campus tours through the afternoon while we also took the opportunity to record several video interviews with the men and women who had contributed so much to establishing the foundations of the school which we all enjoy and appreciate so much today. We even arranged a special viewing of our afternoon car pickup, which is quite an amazing experience for those who do not see it on a daily basis.
At 5:00 pm we hosted a Founders’ Reception in the Atrium on the second floor of the new Levant Foundation Building. This was a very pleasant opportunity for many of our retired faculty to mingle with Mr Sandy Awty, board members, senior Administrators, members of board committees, the APPA executive and alumni, as well as former Head of Awty, Mr Jarek Garlinski.
The festivities continued into the evening when the French Consul in Houston, Mr Frédéric Bontems (who is also an Awty Board member) hosted a dinner at the consular residence in honor of Mr Jean-Christophe Deberre's visit to Houston. It was a fitting end to a long but thoroughly enjoyable day of celebrating the centenary of one of Houston’s great educational visionaries as well as a widely loved, very gracious lady - Mrs Kay Awty.