Deerfield may well be the only independent secondary school with its own press. Co-directors Bob and Andrea Moorhead talk about how it began and plans for future projects.

At the beginning of fall term 1994, with Deerfield Academy's 200th anniversary fast approaching, Eric Widmer, the newly arrived headmaster, came to Andrea and Robert Moorhead with a proposal. Would they be willing to prepare a pictorial history of Deerfield, the central celebratory document of the bicentennial? Andrea would do the historical research and write the text, the headmaster suggested; and Robert would design and oversee the production of the book. To carve out time for the project, some alterations might be made to their responsibilities outside the classroom. An office would be found. There would be resources. As to the schedule, well, perhaps bound books could be ready in time for Charter Day, March 1997- two and a half years in the offing... The Moorheads, the headmaster knew, were ideally suited to the bicentennial publishing project. "They have deep back-ground on the editorial and graphic design side," he mused recently. "I knew that they were well-known internationally for their poetry magazine Osiris," which they founded in 1972 and which they have shepherded for the past three decades.

The couple are long-time Deerfield faculty. First hired to teach Latin tutorials, Andrea has been for many years a full-time teacher of French. Robert is a teacher of visual arts-a broad subject that includes two- and three-dimensional design fundamentals, graphic design, calligraphy, video, and architectural design and drawing. Throughout their teaching careers, the Moorheads have had richly productive parallel lives in the fine arts. She is a bi-lingual poet, editor, and translator who publishes regularly in several poetry journals in the U.S. and abroad. He is a prolific graphic artist and painter whose work has appeared in many gallery shows. He was also, for a decade, director of the academy's Charles P. Russell Gallery.

Of course, the Moorheads agreed to the headmaster's suggestion...

Research was first on their agenda. There were some disconcerting surprises at the outset. As Andrea explains in the introduction to the bicentennial book, Deerfield 1797-1997: A Pictorial History of the Academy, "I went over to the Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association/Historic Deerfield library and learned that history does not come in boxes and file folders. I also learned from reading George Sheldon that Dexter Childs, secretary to the academy's board of trustees, had lost all the school records in a great house fire in 1875."

And so, in a working mode that seems especially fitting for a poet cum historian, Andrea "followed the line of vision wherever I found it-in a list of errands 50 years old, in a line of type in a town report written immediately after the Civil War, in a fragment of a love letter found in Hitchcock Dormitory's wall, in a yellowed photograph in a scrapbook, a dance program, an embroidered picture, in the chance conversation with an alumnus or a colleague. Month by month, the academy's past emerged." Andrea's painstaking research and the narrative she created from it yielded up a picture of the academy that is rich in characters, events, issues, and challenges. An example is her deft portrait of Deerfield's operation as a semi-private secondary school, under mandate from the General Court. The mandate came in a straitened time, when the town's population and tax revenues were seriously declining. The hero of that long-forgotten story was Virgil M. Howard, the principal from 1857 until 1872. Howard is one of several historical figures Andrea virtually resurrected from obscurity.

Following the line-carefully excavating 200 years of history-took more time than anticipated. Once the materials were in hand, there remained the organizing, the writing, the fact checking, the production, and the proof reading. "Thankfully," says Andrea, "Janet W. B. Rogers, retired teacher and long-time Deerfield friend, was there to help." Even with this invaluable assistance, it was slow going and soon the project was running behind schedule.

Eventually Robert, who was laying out the book, was only a chapter or two ahead of Andrea. She recalls, "A chapter at a time, he would tell me how much space there was for each section and I would write to fit." Near the end it was a race against the clock. As the revised deadline of Commencement 1997 approached the printer started to run the early signatures even as Andrea was writing text for later chapters.

Sometime during this high-wire act, Robert remembers, the headmaster had another question for the preoccupied couple: "Would it be possible to start a press?"

"We just let it float," says Andrea.

The subject of a press did not come up again until the final proof-reading stage for what was to be a stunning 226-page book. Now Robert, preparing the front matter for the printer, had a question for the headmaster: "I said to him, 'We need to indicate who published this book. Should it be the Deerfield Academy Press?' And Eric said, 'Yes." The Moorheads smile gently when they tell this story. This was the moment when the Deerfield Academy Press officially began.

For his part, Eric Widmer smiles a bit, too, when he admits that "In starting the press, initially, I was probably testing my powers as headmaster. Ours is, as far as we know, the only preparatory school press in the country." Widmer had no prior experience with the publishing enterprise per se. He did have a strong hunch that a press would be a fine addition to life at Deerfield. And while he is well aware that many respected commercial and university presses have foundered in recent years, the headmaster is nonetheless inclined to minimize the daring of his creation-the degree to which he was swimming against the tide. These days, he notes evenly, with efficient and relatively inexpensive new typesetting and printing technologies, it is possible to create a press "with the snap of your fingers. I thought, Why not have a press if you can? The important questions are who will run it and what will it accomplish."

The question of who would run it was settled when the Moorheads agreed to be its co-directors. Except for occasional assistance with proof reading, they are virtually the sole staff members. As to what it would accomplish, Widmer had two goals in mind: "We thought the press should display the academic seriousness of the school. It should also give people an opportunity to write and to see their writing in print.

"The Pictorial History was a great beginning for us," the headmaster continues. "It's the best of its kind-actually, in a class by itself. But we couldn't stop there. New ideas began to come to us even before we had finished it." One of the new ideas was a sister publication: an anthology of essays, reflections, speeches, and discussions occasioned by the bicentennial celebrations. Contributors to the lively anthology, The Transcendent Mirror, came from Deerfield's broad community of alumni, faculty, and friends. Eric Widmer and Janet Rogers edited the volume. One contribution, "Some Advice from an Optimist," came from former U.S. President George H. W. Bush's extemporaneous remarks at the 1997 Commencement, at which his great-nephew Alexander Ellis IV received his diploma.

In 2001, Widmer and Rogers again teamed up as editors. Owned by the Land: Global Education and the Environment is a condensed record of a conference of the international educators' group Global Connections, whose members met for four days at Deerfield in 2000. Nearly 100 school leaders from 19 countries were present. The volume includes reports on how schools in India, China, Australia, the United Kingdom, the United States, and other countries have moved environmental education forward. It is certain to be a valuable document for educators for years to come.

In his thinking about the press, Andrea has observed, the headmaster seems drawn to works that locate Deerfield's role and the role of education in generally creating a better world. "Eric is interested in the larger social implications"-the global picture, she says. Her private nickname for The Pictorial History, The Transcendent Mirror, and Owned by the Land is "the headmaster series." What they have in common is their focus on civic responsibility, their recognition that those who will shape tomorrow's world are themselves importantly shaped by schools like Deerfield. Next year will mark the centennial of the momentous arrival of Frank Boyden at Deerfield. Several talks on Boyden and the tradition of ethical leadership have been commissioned. Knowledgeable observers predict that a version of those talks will find their way into "the head-master series."

The Open Gate: Four Deerfield Poets is so far the only Deerfield Academy Press publication that features faculty writing exclusively. The book made its debut in the hastily lit Black Box Theatre on a bitter February night two years ago. The experience was as warm as the night was cold. As Robert remembers it, poets Peter Fallon, Ann Haffey Quinn, John Palmer, and Andrea Moorhead-"four poets who couldn't be more different"-introduced each other extemporaneously and drew the audience into an intimate experience of poetry. "Afterwards, Eric had a fire in the fireplace. People stayed for a long time talking."

More works by the faculty are planned. Now under active consideration at the press is a geology field book, growing out of the distinguished work of two Deerfield faculty members. As envisioned, it will be an authoritative, annotated list of geological sites of interest in the area- useful and appealing to a broad range of users both inside and outside of the academy.

When asked to share their own fondest dreams for the press, the Moorheads say they know of many other faculty members whose nearly clandestine endeavors would lend themselves well to publication. "There is a mathematician who writes music," Andrea says thoughtfully, "and a woman who translates Chinese. A number of people write literature. I don't think it would be too hard to flush them out."

In the meantime, at the very heart of the press's life is the annual publication of student journals. "Nothing shows off the scholarly work of the school as well as this important on-going work," says Widmer. Currently there are three flourishing journals, produced with the energetic cooperation of the English, history, and language departments. Typically text is prepared and edited on disk and handed over to the Moorheads for their professional wizardry. Press runs range from 400 to 1,200. The journals are distributed by the Admission Office and individual academic departments, and are on sale in the academy bookstore.

The Buttonball Papers: A Journal Devoted to Topics in American History by Students at Deerfield Academy was the press's first student journal publication. So far there have been five issues, each showcasing essays written by juniors. Competition for inclusion is stiff. Four History Department faculty read every essay blind, then evaluate, discuss, and decide on the best six or seven for publication. Andrea chose the journal's distinctive name. She found it in George Sheldon's 1908 paper, "The Pocumtuck Buttonball," an imaginative historical interpretation of Deerfield life as witnessed by an ancient eastern sycamore that stands in front of the Main School Building.

For a number of years, the English Department produced a simple photocopied publication of its best student writings. At the suggestion of the headmaster, the Moorheads redesigned the journal for student writers called The Little Brown House Review. The writings that appear include those that have received the English Department's major prizes as well as some that are recommended by the faculty. Student art graces its cover and inside pages. Again, the title resonates with Deerfield's history. It refers to the house of Robert McGlynn, an esteemed teacher of English for 41 years.

The third of the student journals, Lingua Franca, is a publication of the Language Department. Now in its fourth year, Lingua Franca features poetry, fiction, essays, and reflections by students writing in German, French, Chinese, Spanish, and Latin. The cover art is also student-produced.

This spring, in the short interval between February and April, a remarkable student publication came into being. Jennifer McEachern '02, 2001-2002 president of the Black Student Coalition, approached Andrea about the possibility of creating a small book commemorating Black History Month, rather than simply making Black History Month the focus of the annual poetry broadside.

Delighted with the suggestion, the Moorheads and student contributors set to work at once. The resulting publication, Kaleidoscope, the newest offering from the press, features 32 pages of student poems, short prose, photographs, and reflections. It is only the second publication to date initiated and produced entirely-from cover illustration to introduction to text entries-by students working collaboratively with the Moorheads.

No doubt it is premature to proclaim Kaleidoscope a harbinger of student DEERFIELD MAGAZINE to come. But in an age when the average digitally proficient student can knock out a website and even generate computer graphics, its appearance is surely an encouraging sign. During the past five years, the Moorheads have observed again and again that, in Robert's words, "Kids love being published." Their obvious thrill at seeing their work on the printed page reminds him of the reactions he has seen when teaching calligraphy in the classroom. "It may be a sense of revelation," he says, "something to do with the indelible evidence of the human mind at work; the handsome, durable product; the relationship of one's own fledgling work to a great tradition."

In the earliest days of the Deerfield Academy Press, some faculty were skeptical about the utility of such an old-fashioned publishing project, Robert says. "They wondered why, at the beginning of the 21st century, anyone would want to create a press." "Much to our surprise," Andrea says, finishing her husband's thought, "the students have answered."

As to the headmaster's assessment, he couldn't be more pleased with the press's achievements to date. The on-going students' journals, he says, bring joy to the community. He is delighted that "we've built up such a good head of steam with scholarly projects. We'll probably continue to publish a book every year or two."

The man who asked himself "Why not have a press if you can have one?" has witnessed the benefits it confers on Deerfield life. There is much more to come. Meanwhile, he concludes, "The press lends distinction to the school. It rounds out our life here."

Terry Y. Allen is a writer who lives in Amherst, MA