The Leelanau School


The Leelanau School is a co-educational non-profit boarding high school located in Glen Arbor, Michigan. The school was founded in 1929, and is a small, college-preparatory school with of land with 13 year-round and 9 seasonal building structures. The school has a teacher-to-student ratio between 1:6 and 1:10 for most classes, ranking among the top 20 American boarding schools in that category. It has a diverse student body, boasting an international enrollment of over 10%.
The school is located on the shore of Lake Michigan just outside Glen Arbor, with the Crystal River running through the property. The Lanphier Observatory, with a Schmidt-Cassegrain reflector telescope, is also located on the grounds.

History

Leelanau School for Boys was founded in 1929 by William M. "Skipper" Beals and his wife Cora, née Mautz, faculty members of Principia College, in response to the popularity of their summer camps for Christian Scientist boys. Originally, the school, like the camps, was intended for boys from Christian Science homes. But while the camps maintain close ties to Christian Science to the present day, the school dropped its official religious denominational focus early on. The Christian Science camps were separated from the school completely in 1987 and continue .
The school weathered the Great Depression and its popularity necessitated the opening of Pinebrook School for Girls in 1940. The two schools grew rapidly after World War II and were eventually combined. Beginning in the early 1930s, Arthur S. “Major” Huey became an apprentice to Skipper Beals. In partnership with his wife Helen, née Mautz, Huey purchased the school after Skipper’s death in 1942.
Privately owned until 1963, the school became a non-profit corporation with a board of directors upon the Hueys’ creation of The Leelanau Schools and Library Foundation, Inc., to which they gave the camps and the school with its present grounds. In 1967 Cora Beals donated the land that became "faculty row". The non-profit status eased fundraising efforts. The school grounds were exempted from eminent domain associated with the formation of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, which surrounds the campus.
At its peak in 1970, the school had 167 enrolled students. School enrollment stabilized at close to 100 students as the 1970s drew to a close.

Athletics

Traditionally nicknamed Indians, Leelanau students chose to abandon the now-controversial moniker and adopted the name Thunderbirds in 2003 after consultation with members of Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians. It competes as a Class D school in the Michigan High School Athletic Association. In past years, the school fielded teams in cross country, football, soccer, volleyball, basketball, alpine skiing, baseball, softball, tennis, golf and track and field, but in recent years has only fielded tennis, golf and volleyball squads. Leelanau was a charter member of the Northwest Conference and garnered most of the Northwest's track titles during its tenure, including every single one in the 1950s, but was forced to leave that organization for the Cherryland Conference when its enrollment dropped in the mid-1970s. Traditional Cherryland rivals include Lake Leelanau St. Mary and Northport. A newer rivalry has begun with Traverse City Christian School since that school's founding in 1995.
Leelanau pioneered alpine skiing as a Michigan high school varsity sport during the 1950s and was instrumental in its adoption as an official MHSAA championship sport, but was forced to abandon the sport when the nearby Sugar Loaf Resort closed in 2000. Leelanau was the MHSAA boys' skiing state runner-up in 1992, beaten at the state finals only by Traverse City, a school over 30 times larger. Leelanau is by far the smallest school in Michigan ever to place so high in an MHSAA open state championship. Other accomplishments include:
During the summer months, the campus' comfortable temperatures and north woods setting plays host to several NCAA varsity squads' preseason training camps, including cross-country and volleyball squads from the University of Michigan and Michigan State University, as well as the University of Virginia women's soccer team, among others.

Alumni

Notable alumni include: