Gould Academy is a private, co-ed, college preparatory boarding

Boarding school

A boarding school is a school where some or all pupils study and live during the school year with their fellow students and possibly teachers and/or administrators. The word 'boarding' is used in the sense of "bed and board," i.e., lodging and meals...

 and day

Day school

A day school—as opposed to a boarding school—is an institution where children are given educational instruction during the day and after which children/teens return to their homes...

 school located in the small town of Bethel, Maine

Bethel, Maine

Bethel is a town in Oxford County, Maine, United States. The population was 2,411 at the 2000 census. It includes the villages of West Bethel and South Bethel...

, United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. 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.

History

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 and an early settler from Cape Cod, 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. William Bingham II, who came to Bethel from Cleveland for John George Gehring's medical care, was a major school benefactor from the 1930s to his death in 1955 and thereafter via the Bingham Betterment Fund. Since the town of Bethel lacked a public high school, all local children were educated at Gould until 1969, when Telstar High School

Telstar Regional Middle/High School

Telstar Regional Middle/High School is a middle/high school located in Bethel, Maine, in the United States as part of Maine School Administrative District 44...

 opened.

Notable alumni

• Dominic Arsenault, freestyle skier
• Park Bom
  Park Bom
  Park Bom , is a South Korean idol singer, Born in Seoul, South Korea, she eventually moved to the United States where she learned English. She is the main vocalist of girl group 2NE1, where her stage name became solely "Bom"...
  
   ’01 – Korean pop singer
  
• Arn Chorn-Pond
  Arn Chorn-Pond
  Arn Chorn-Pond is a human rights activist committed to preserving traditional Cambodian music.-Early life:Chorn-Pond was born in Cambodia in 1966 into a Battambang family of performers and musicians...
  
   ’85 – Human rights activist
  
• Richard Dysart
  Richard Dysart
  Richard A. Dysart is an American actor, perhaps best known for his role as Leland McKenzie on the NBC legal drama L.A. Law....
  
   ’48 — an American actor, perhaps best known for his role as Leland McKenzie on the NBC legal drama L.A. Law
  L.A. Law
  L.A. Law is a US television legal drama that ran on NBC from September 15, 1986 to May 19, 1994. L.A. Law reflected the social and cultural ideologies of the 1980s and early 1990s and many of the cases featured on the show dealt with hot topic issues such as abortion, racism, gay rights,...
  
  .
  
• Lafayette Grover – Former Governor of Oregon, Congressman and U.S. Senator
  
• Bump Heldman, former U.S. Ski Team member
• Robin McKinley
  Robin McKinley
  Robin McKinley is a distinguished author of fantasy and children's books who has written sixteen books to date. Her latest book Pegasus was published in 2010...
  
   — a fantasy author especially known for her Newbery Medal
  Newbery Medal
  The John Newbery Medal is a literary award given by the Association for Library Service to Children, a division of the American Library Association . The award is given to the author of the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children. The award has been given since 1922. ...
  
  -winning novel The Hero and the Crown
  The Hero and the Crown
  The Hero and the Crown is a fantasy novel written by Robin McKinley and published by Greenwillow Books in 1984. It is the winner of the 1985 Newbery Medal award. The book is the prequel to The Blue Sword, written in 1982. This story focuses on "Aerin Dragon-Killer," also known as "Aerin...
  
  .
  
• Margaret Joy Tibbetts
  Margaret Joy Tibbetts
  Margaret Joy Tibbets was an American diplomat. A career Foreign Service Officer, she was the United States Ambassador to Norway from 1964 to 1969 under President Lyndon Johnson. She attended Gould Academy, Wheaton College in Massachusetts and her Ph.D. from Bryn Mawr College...
  
   ‘37 – First Female Ambassador
  

Administration

The current head of school, Daniel Kunkle, was appointed in January, 2001, 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.

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).