In the pages that follow in our Annual Report, you will hear about all of the results of last year-evidence enough, I think, that Deerfield continues to thrive in all of the ways that one would want. Indeed, the Class of 2004 led us through a year that would leave any headmaster rather breathless, just trying to keep up.

As the year ended, and our seniors had graduated, there was one more valedictory that needed saying, and I undertook the saying of it with a grateful but heavy heart. Neal Garonzik had been our president of the Board of Trustees for just four years, but during that time we had accomplished so much that it was hard for me to imagine life at Deerfield without him. My only comforting thought was that I had felt exactly the same way when earlier Board presidents had reached the end of their terms. Because Jim Schoff was the one who hired me in 1994, I will always feel a special bond with him and to the trustees who collaborated with him. When Jim yielded his presidency to Bob Dewey in 1996 it was the beginning of a new relationship that saw Deerfield through the most extraordinary accomplishments in its 200-year history-the celebration of the Bicentennial itself, and then a fundraising campaign that was, in its success, completely unprecedented in the annals of independent secondary education in the United States.

At the end of the 1999-2000 academic year, Bob necessarily yielded his presidency to Neal, because his term as a trustee was elapsing. A campaign that had set out to raise $125,000,000 in five years had raised $150,000,000 in four years. What more was there to say?

As it turned out, there was something more to say. During the course of our Bicentennial Campaign, when it became clear that a new center for the sciences, math and technology would answer many of our ambitions for Deerfield, we continued the campaign for a fifth year. Under Neal's leadership we proceeded to raise additional funds that allowed us the financial flexibility to move forward with construction of the Koch Center. From the beginning of the Bicentennial Campaign to the end, under the leadership of Bob Dewey and Neal Garonzik, we have re-written the record books for a school our size.

Did anyone ever doubt that we would? As I sit in my office at Deerfield, and even more as I get out of my office, I can see the things happening in front of me that will become the memories of tomorrow. It is not just the building of the Koch Center, now in full view from my office window, steadily going from abstract to concrete; it is the hours of our days and the days of our years together on this campus. The strength of the Deerfield experience is as formidable, I think, as it has always been. We are united in victory and defeat, and in success and sadness. Saving goodbye to Board presidents, who themselves have their memories of their DeerfIeld years, just as I have of mine, may be an unhappy function that has to be performed every few years, but along with it goes the everlasting gratitude of all of Deerfield for what we have been able to do.

Eric Widmer '57
Headmaster