50th Timeline: 1989 – John Harkins Becomes Fifth Head of School

Our last entry discussed some of the strides made by the School in the late 1980s.  Indeed, these years were among the best for the school financially, with annual giving increasing and an active Parent/Teacher Organization again at work.  However, “spirits plunged” when John Brown announced he was resigning in 1989.  John had done many great things for the School in his short tenure and helped to build bridges both within and without the School grounds.  The Board again organized a search committee and, in March, proudly announced that John Harkins, a very experienced Quaker educator who had spent many years at Germantown Friends School, had accepted the School’s offer to become the fifth Head of School.  With a new Head in place, Dorothy Kramme announced that she was stepping aside as clerk of the Board.   Dorothy had done so much in her many years with the School, and her association was far from done, but she rightly saw that Marcie Waddington would be a perfect successor.  She was right and Marcie proved to be one of the most important clerks in the history of the School.  She and John Harkins were about to enter one of the most exciting and difficult periods in the history of Friends School Mullica Hill, the 1990s.