Yearbook photo

Yearbook entry: Richard Brown May

Home: Virginia Beach, Virginia

Phone: 757-724-7620

Email: may.richardb@gmail.com

Following graduation in 1966, I took a job with the post office as a letter carrier in Vienna.  After a winter of slogging through rain, snow, and gloom of night I decided to head back to academia.  I went south to Norfolk and attended Old Dominion University where, much to the dismay of GCM’s faculty, I graduated four years later with a degree in English and Education.

Rather than teach, I joined the Virginia Department of Corrections as a parole officer and a probation officer for the Norfolk Circuit Court.  While in that capacity I returned to school and got a master’s degree in counseling and research.  Later I was accepted into the doctoral program in urban policy at Old Dominion.  I left the program halfway through so I guess you can say I just have a Phhhh!

I retired from the Department in late 1999 and devoted more time to my acting career.  Over the years, actually dating back to 1989, I performed a variety of roles on stage, including over a dozen for a professional musical theater company.  I was also fortunate enough to be cast in a variety of roles for late-night cable channel cop dramas, three made-for-TV movies and a handful of commercials and public service videos.  Trust me, it ain’t as glamorous as it sounds!

It’s funny how different people remember things about events of their past.  Over the years, folks have asked where I went to high school and what I have told them was it was not Marshall High School.  Nope, never went to Marshall, because one of the things I remember most about life at GCM, other than a few things they tried to teach us in the classroom, is the day the school was dedicated.  It was a freezing cold day in December 1962, when we stood around the flagpole in front of the building while our principal, Mr. Hertzler, gave his remarks.  There were probably a few of us who remember being somewhat stunned when he announced that “we are not Marshall High School.”  I started looking around to see if maybe I had gone back to McLean or over to Madison by mistake, but, there I was standing with the rest of you, wondering just where we were.  He said again “We are not Marshall High School . . . we are George C. Marshall High School” and explained we were not simply a run-of-the-mill high school, just as George Marshall was not simply a run-of-the-mill soldier.

We who were there in 1962 were called upon that day to bring to life an assembled pile of bricks and mortar and to make it into a living, breathing entity called George C. Marshall High School.  That we did.  Those words by Elam Hertzler may have fallen that day on ears that were red from the cold, but not ears that were deaf to the message.

No, I never went to Marshall.  Nor did you.

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