Gould Academy is a private, co-ed, college preparatory boarding and day school located in the small town of Bethel, Maine, United States. Founded in 1835, the school offers skiing and snowboarding programs, although unlike specialized "ski academies" it remains first and foremost a college-prep school.
The school serves grades 9–12, with a post-graduate program and an eighth-grade winter-term program for competitive skiers and snowboarders. About 240 students attend the school; of those; 45 percent come from Maine, 15 percent from elsewhere in New England, and the remaining 40 percent from other U.S. states or other countries.[1]
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Bethel High School opened its doors in 1836; the following year, as Bethel Academy, it accepted its first tuition-paying students, both locals and boarders. Reverend Daniel Gould, the town's first pastor who settled in 1799[2] from Cape Cod,[3] left his $842 fortune to the school when he died in 1843. Gould, who left no children, stipulated that the school be named for him; from then on it was known as Gould's Academy and eventually Gould Academy.[1] William Bingham II,[4] who came to Bethel from Cleveland for John George Gehring's medical care,[5] was a major school benefactor from the 1930s to his death in 1955 and thereafter via the Bingham Betterment Fund.[1] Since the town of Bethel lacked a public high school, all local children were educated at Gould until 1969, when Telstar High School opened.[1]
The current head of school, Daniel Kunkle, was appointed in January, 2001,[8] and will retire at the end of academic year 2011-12. Starting in July, 2012, Matthew Ruby, associate head of school at Shattuck-St. Mary's School in Faribault, MN, since 2009, will assume the position of head at Gould.[9]
Isaac Randal (sp?) was the first precepter.[2] Past headmasters of note have included Nathaniel T. True (1848-1861), Frank E. Hanscom (1897-1936), Elwood F. Ireland (1940-1959), and Edmond J. Vachon (1959-1967).[1]