The GMA Years

The first decade of the Twentieth Century - the world seemed to be shrinking. Vast developments in transportation and communications along with advancements in social reforms and the arts were among the many changes of the time.

Over the next three decades, the world would be witnessing Germany's Wilhelm II and threatening war and engaging in World War I. It would undergo great social changes, the Russian Revolution, and the Great Depression. There would be a rise of totalitarianism, the Roosevelt administration, and, again, the threat of war and Adolph Hitler.

By the first year of Woodrow Wilson's presidency, the name of Georgia Military Academy and that of its founder became SO well known that the voice of Colonel Woodward could be heard and followed nationwide. He organized all of the military institutions in the United States.

By his own initiative and expense, Colonel Woodward was instrumental in launching the program which gave birth in 1914 to the Association of Military Colleges and Schools. Throughout the rest of his life, he would continue to work with this association, to improve the standards of the member schools and to secure closer cooperation with the United States War Department. During the years that followed, he took an active part in the work of the association and served as its representative to the War Department when any type of legislation was needed.

Rightfully, he served as the first president of the Association of Military Colleges and Schools. At the same time, he created interest in national legislation making the Reserve Officer's Training Corps (R.O.T.C.) an integral part of the nation's military estabishment.

He also succeeded in getting the junior military schools recognized in the National Defense Act of 1916; and in the fall of 1916, he was successful in getting appointments to West Point and Annapolis awarded to Honor Graduates of the schools.

It was in the fall of 1916 that G.M.A. was established as a Junior Reserve Officer's Training Corps. At that time, the U.S. War Department assigned an additional Army instructor to the school.

With the United States' involvement in World War I, some six hundred Georgia Military Academy alumni enlisted for overseas service. Practically all were made officers; some were commissioned as high as majors. Thirteen alumni lost their lives during the war.

The first monument erected in Monument Row honors those alumni:

	Eldon E. Brewster
	Howard Candler Curtis
	Beverly D. Evans, Jr.
	Robert Richmond Forrester
	Jesse Hanlin
	William Thomas Makinson
	Wilbur Oglesby
	W. Powell
	Fred Smith
	James Reed Welch

Georgia Military Academy's place in education and in military training had become so well established that a group of Atlanta's best known citizens attended a dinner meeting in the spring of 1918 to hear Colonel Woodward speak about G.M.A. He gave the history of the school, spoke of its future, and invited their cooperation in projecting the school's work upon a much larger and more lasting foundation.

The movement resulted in having about seventy-five leading citizens of Georgia, Alabama, and Florida become members of the school corporation with the earnest purpose of making Georgia Military Academy the equal of any school for boys and young men in the country.

Colonel W.L. Peel of Atlanta was elected Chairman of the Board of Directors with William Candler as Secretary. Other members of the Board were Colonel J.C. Woodward, Mrs. J.C. Woodward, Colonel C.A. Wickersham, Captain Frank Adair, Colonel St. Elmo Massengale, Mr. S.S. Selig, Jr., and Captain R.S. Rosser.

With funds received from the stock, Colonel Woodward paid for the Gymnasium Building. Immediate steps were taken to enlarge the campus, making it about twenty-five acres. Four new cottages were added.

Next, Memorial Hall was constructed on the site of the present Fine Arts building, Richardson Hall, and dedicated to those Georgia Military Academy cadets who gave their services to their country during World War I. Memorial Hall stood like a giant among the other buildings on campus. The approach to the building was a beautiful plaza, thirty feet wide and one hundred feet long, leading to an imposing granite flight of steps and a broad porch. On the main floor was a spacious dining hall which would accommodate two hundred cadets.

On the second floor were offices for the President and the Board of Directors. In addition there were teachers' livinguarters, a reception and reading hall, a moving picture room, and dorm rooms for twenty-six cadets.

Teachers' quarters, a parlor, a matron's room, and forty cadet rooms occupied the third floor.

Following construction of Memorial Hall, Founder's Hall Annex, a two-story brick structure was constructed behind Founder's Hall. It housed shops and manual training rooms and a mechanical drawing hall on the first floor with additional spaces for a large study hall and a chapel on the second floor.

In the early years, Colonel Woodward did not have any money, and the school always seemed to be in debt; but, somehow, through John Charles' imagination and determination, the school grew.

With the help of some influential citizens in Hendersonville, North Carolina, Colonel Woodward furthered his dreams. He dreamed of establishing another school in Hendersonville similar to Georgia Military Academy. In the summer of 1919, therefore, Colonel Woodward established the Carolina Military and Naval Academy on the Hendersonville site.

He built a school building and used a three-story structure (originally a hotel) for additional dormitory space. The school used surplus army uniforms and equipment, and the United States Navy furnished the school with some cutters and other naval equipment. The school operated with some success for about five years.

Following the closing of the Carolina Military and Naval Academy, Colonel Woodward purchased 305 acres in Hendersonville. The College Park campus had grown to the point that a full summer schedule was needed to include a summer camp. Georgia Military Academy did not have summer school on the main campus during those days; all cadets would move from College Park to Hendersonville for the summer. Camp Highland Lake had become a reality in Colonel Woodward's expanding dreams.

It was Colonel Woodward's intention that the young students would, after a summer of physical training and military preparedness, return to the main Academy campus each fall stronger in body, quicker in mental activity, purer in morals, more polished in manners, more graceful in bearing, and more patriotic toward their country.

During the camp's ten years of operation, Colonel Woodward maintained the full program of the camp. He personally conducted all daily chapel programs and employed his genius for making the boys develop stronger and happier.

When the camp ceased operations as a summer home for the school, Colonel Woodward gave the camp to his children. His second son, C.D. Woodward, remained on the site operating the Highland Lake property as an independent camp. Later, C.D. would buy the camp outright and operate it until about 1939. At that time, he sold the property and retired to Crystal River, Florida.

In 1924, the New Gym (site of the present Colquitt Student Center) was constructed and was considered at the time as perhaps the largest gym of any prep school in the country. In addition to its use for indoor sports, it contained some administrative offices and an arched stage. It would operate as a gymnasium until 1943. At that time, it was renovated and served until 1975 as the school's auditorium.

During the same year, 1924, the Daughters of the Confederacy unveiled the Atlanta Breast Works Monument in front of Founder's Hall. It stands today in its original place in front of the Student Information Center, Brewster Hall.

At the same time, Georgia Military Academy became one of the pioneers among institutions of its kind in aviation. It was the first school in Georgia to have an aviation program. The campus could accommodate planes landing and taking off. In addition, the school established one of the first departments of automobile mechanics in the South and operated the school's radio station.

At the end of the third decade, 1929, the year of the Wall Street collapse, the class of 1929-30 erected the Memorial Gate, the main entrance to the campus. The year also marked one of the honors given over the years to Robert W. Woodruff, Class of 1908. The school band was given his name showing appreciation for his efforts as a student in 1908 when he helped solicit money to buy the band members their first uniforms.

Excerpt from “The Woodward Story”, by Robert Ballentine, published 1990 by Jostens Printing and Publishing; content used with permission of the copyright holder, Woodward Academy Inc., College Park, Georgia, USA.

Growing Years (1911-1925)