Pingry School Celebrating 150th Anniversary

The , with its middle and upper school campus located in the Martinsville section of the township, will this Friday launch its 150th anniversary celebration during Reunion Weekend at the private school.

During the coming year, many special events will be held to celebrate Pingry's history and achievements, the school announced. The schedule will include a new film, a lecture series, a student performance at the former Hillside Campus (now Kean University), commemorative items and an alumni trip to Bermuda with Miller Bugliari, '52, chairman of the Sesquicentennial Celebration, said Greg Waxberg, spokesman for Pingry. The anniversary year will culminate in a gala in May 2012, according to a news release from Pingry.

Bugliari, celebration chairman, entered Pingry in grade 2 and has now taught and coached at the school for 52 years, a third of its 150-year history.

Founded by Dr. John Pingry in 1861 as a small boys' school  in Elizabeth, the institution grew into a co-educational independent K-12 country day school with more than 1,000 students at campuses in Short Hills and Martinsville. Grades 6-12 are located in the Martinsville campus.

From the school’s inception, Dr. Pingry emphasized strong moral development and a commitment to service, strongly believing that a person’s character is as important as his or her intellectual development, according to the new release about the anniversary. Throughout a majority of the school’s history, Pingry students have been guided and influenced by an honor code and honor system, as well as dedicated to community service, the release said.

Rather than a list of rules, the honor code is a philosophy — a system of beliefs —requiring that all members of the community should conduct themselves honorably and in a trustworthy manner, honor the rights of others, and work for the common good.

During the past 150 years, the school has moved three times to accommodate its growing student body and position itself for New Jersey’s future population growth—first to a larger campus in Elizabeth, then to Hillside, and finally to Martinsville, home of the middle and upper Schools. The lower school has been located in Short Hills ever since Pingry merged with Short Hills Country Day School in 1974. Pingry became co-educational when it admitted the first female students in the mid-1970s.

The move to Martinsville helped make Pingry the school it is grown into by making the campus more accessible to additional communities via two interstates, the release said. A number of facility enhancements have made great impacts on school life, according to the school.

Pingry constructed The Miller Bugliari ’52 World Cup Soccer Field to serve as the 1994 training field for the Italian National Soccer Team, and to honor Coach Bugliari, the school’s senior faculty member and legendary boys’ varsity soccer coach.

In 2003, Pingry opened the Hostetter Arts Center, which contains the Macrae Theater, to provide students with more classroom, rehearsal, and performance spaces for music, fine arts, and drama.

The following year, the school unveiled the Baldwin Courtyard in front of the Martinsville Campus. This space features “The Beginning of Wisdom,” a greater than life-size bronze statue of Dr. Pingry and students, and serves as a relaxing area for members of the community.

With the opening of the Carol and Park B. Smith ’50 Middle School in 2007, grade 6 moved from the lower to the middle school to join grades 7 and 8 to focus the middle school experience, the release said.

In 2008, the school installed its first turf field, honoring the memory of John Taylor Babbitt, class of 2007, who died suddenly from a rare heart condition while playing basketball.

Most recently, in 2010, the Martinsville Campus Clock Tower received a new façade and was expanded to include a glass-enclosed entrance on the main level and a reading room in the library on the upper level.

For more information about Pingry’s Sesquicentennial Celebration, please visit the Pingry website or contact Lynne Brum at lbrum@pingry.org.

The Pingry School is recognized throughout the United States for its academic excellence, honor code, arts, athletics, and universal concern among faculty for each student in the school, according to the school's release. The school’s mission is to foster in students a lifelong commitment to intellectual exploration, individual growth, and social responsibility, while preparing them to be global citizens and leaders of the 21st century, the school said.

The student body is composed of approximately 1,060 students from 106 communities and 14 counties across New Jersey and Pennsylvania, according to school information.