The Beard Family

The Beard families' ties with Christ School go back over half a century. Tom Beard '51, P'84, GP'12, GP'18 first stepped foot on campus in 1947 as a ninth grader. His son John and grandsons, Thomas and John, would follow suit.

Over the years Tom '51 and John '84 have served as trustees and Sarah Beard P'18 has been head of the Parent Council. With grandson John's graduation in 2018, Tom and his wife, Nancy, were looking for a way to stay connected with the school, to give other boys the opportunity to benefit from attending CS, and to support and augment Christ School's endowment. And so, they established The Beard Family Scholarship, which is given to a rising Fifth Form student.

For John Beard '84, the Beard Scholarship is an opportunity to show the significance of endowment giving at Christ School. "Hopefully others will continue with endowing scholarships and hopefully endowing some teachers' chairs and whatever we need to do to build the endowment. It is unbelievable what we have done with this capital campaign, but we still need to

build the endowment. When we set out for this we definitely didn't think we would raise the money we have raised and get the buildings funded the way we did, but the one spot that we still need to work for is the endowment. I think that's where the school is going to continue to push. If the school is going to continue to grow we have to have scholarships to attract quality students, the kind of young men who will continue to give back to the school for years and years to come."

The Beard Family Scholarship is also an important example of planned giving. In addition to funding a scholarship currently, the Beard Family has committed to growing the scholarship and supporting the school through their estate plans.