The Kiski School


The Kiski School, formally the Kiskiminetas Springs School after the Kiskiminetas River, is a private, all-male boarding school located in Loyalhanna Township, Pennsylvania, though it has a Saltsburg, Pennsylvania mailing address. It is about 40 miles east of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and is the oldest remaining non-military all-male boarding school in the United States.
The school has an enrollment of about 185, including grade 9-12 and postgraduate students About 35 percent of the student body are international students.

History

Andrew W. Wilson founded the Kiski School in 1888 on a wooded hill overlooking the Kiskiminetas River separating Westmoreland County from Indiana County, on land that had once been a summer resort and mineral spa. Forty-two students had graduated from Kiski by 1894; 26 of them went to Princeton. The original faculty consisted of just Wilson, and school co-founder R. W. Fair, who taught mathematics.
Dr. W. H. MacColl succeeded Wilson as president in 1930. J. L. Marks and Colonel J. J. Daub were also influential early faculty.
L. M. Clark was elected president of the school's board of trustees in 1941, and was appointed headmaster in 1942. Many campus additions and improvements were carried out under Clark's leadership. Upon his retirement in 1957, the assistant to the headmaster of Deerfield Academy, John A. Pidgeon, was chosen to succeed him.
Pidgeon led the school for 45 years, during which the school underwent additions and improvements to the facilities and a growth in academic reputation, as well as the school's endowment. Under Pidgeon, four new dormitories were built and others renovated, and a new classroom building, dining hall, library, fine arts center, and administrative complex were constructed. Other campus facilities include a baseball field, swimming pool, outdoor track, field house, nine-hole golf course, and the Swank Student Center, opened in 2009. The campus is wireless, and all students are provided with a laptop computer.
In 2005, Kiski reinstated a day student program that allows students to attend without having to reside on campus.
The school requires every student to participate in athletics. Among the sports offered are football, soccer, cross country, golf, wrestling, swimming, basketball, hockey, diving, lacrosse, baseball, track and field, and tennis. The school has 12 sports teams at the varsity level.
Kiski boys live two to a room in one of six dorms. Normally, there are two or more faculty members-as well as their families and pets-in each residence. Every Kiski boy eats meals with a faculty family and adheres to a coat-and-tie dress code.

Notable alumni