When Lawrence "Larry" Durante '53 and his father, John (Hon. '53) arrived at Exeter in the fall of 1952, they were at once amazed and delighted to see several marching bands, in full regalia, high stepping around the Academy grounds in perfect formation. Although the bands were actually in town for a convention, to Larry and his father it seemed that they had been sent to welcome them to campus. It was a happy moment—one that has lingered in Mr. Durante's memory for over 50 years.

Larry spent only his senior year at Exeter, but he immersed himself completely in the experience, excelling at his academics, becoming quarterback of the football team and singing with the Glee Club (many classmates can still recall Larry's gorgeous tenor voice). Mr. Durante visited Larry at Exeter every weekend, cheering him on in his sporting events and bringing goodies from home for Larry and his friends to share. Through these frequent sojourns, Mr. Durante came to know and appreciate the Academy almost as much as his son did. And while Larry went on to distinguish himself at Princeton and later at Columbia, it was at Exeter that he left his heart. "Larry showed little emotion when he left Princeton and medical school," Mr. Durante recently recalled at Larry's 50th Exeter reunion celebration, "but it sure broke his heart to leave here. He loved everything and everyone at the Academy."

Yet Larry's promising life was cut short. While serving his residency at the Squire Urological Clinic at the Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center, he became sick with cancer. On October 26, 1963, Larry died in the Harkness Pavilion (named, liked the Exeter teaching method, for its benefactor, Edward S. Harkness) at Columbia Presbyterian. He was just 28 years old. Fittingly, Hammy Bissell '29 and Exeter classmate Dan Cook III '53 were two of his final visitors.

Larry had been a scholarship student at Exeter, Princeton and Columbia, and one of the first things his Academy classmates and friends did after his death was to create the Dr. Lawrence J. Durante, 1953, Scholarship Fund. Mr. Durante was invited to take part in early discussions about the fund and was the first person to contribute to it when it was officially established in January 1964. Since that time, Mr. Durante, a retired County Clerk and Clerk of the Supreme Court of Queens County, N.Y., and his daughter, Joan, a recently retired New York State Supreme Court Justice, have been generous contributors to the Durante Fund and to many other Academy funds. Most recently, in honor of Larry's 50th reunion, Mr. Durante made a lead gift to the class fundraising effort.

Born in 1911 to immigrant parents, John Durante was sent to live in a Catholic orphanage on Staten Island at age 3, when his mother, a young widow, went to work as a seamstress in a sweatshop to help support her family. The children at the orphanage, some 1500 in all, split their days between work and school, and John remained there for nine years, during which time he rotated through several workstations, including the laundry, the tailor shop, the shoe shop, the carpentry and print shops, and the kitchen. While he acknowledges that it was a highly regimented environment, Mr. Durante has warm memories of life at the orphanage and stresses the fact that he was never mistreated. It was a pivotal experience, one that developed in him a powerful work ethic that he would later impart to his two children.

When he left the orphanage at age 12, John entered a strange new world. In the early 1920s, Manhattan's Lower East Side was a congested, dirty ghetto, rife with violence and poverty—a far cry from the bucolic setting of his former home. John was reunited with his family and began attending public school, but his elegant diction (he had learned "the Queen's English" from the Irish nuns at the orphanage) drew ridicule from his peers, and he soon decided to work during the day and attend school at night. For the next several years, John labored at various factory jobs, nearly always rising to the position of foreman. Fitness became a kind of hobby for him during this time, and he excelled as an amateur pugilist and runner, even making it to the tryouts for the 1928 Olympics.

As the Great Depression of the 1930s drew to a close and the economy picked up, John moved into the realm of management, and politics supplanted fitness as his new extracurricular passion. He soon married and started a family, eventually landing a job as the managing partner of the Equipment Sales and Rental Company. It was through this job and volunteer work with the local chapter of the Republican club that John came to know Cyril E. Fyles, whose son, Roderick A. "Allen" Fyles '50, was then a student at the Academy. When John explained to Cyril that his son, Larry, wasn't being challenged at his local school, Cyril encouraged John to have Larry send an application to Exeter. John was already aware of Exeter's reputation from stories he'd read in the New York newspapers, so when an acceptance letter arrived a few months later, father and son danced in celebration.

Mr. Durante and his daughter's support of the Durante Fund, and their strong relationship with the Academy and with Larry's friends and classmates have kept alive the spirit of a son and brother whom John describes as "an unassuming, gentle, totally decent human being." And yet, there is more. In 1975, Mr. Durante wrote the following to friends at the Academy: "While on the face of it, the Fund honors my son, to my mind it also, very significantly, is recognition of the Academy's warm and generous character, as exemplified by men such as Bill Saltonstall, Bill Clark, Hammy Bissell, the late Darcy Curwen, the late Arthur Landers, among many others, all of whom instilled the 'Spirit of Exeter' so beautifully in Larry's heart and in mine."

Since its inception, the Durante Fund has supported 19 students at Exeter, most recently Juan Felix '02, now attending Stanford University, and current student Kimberley McLeod '05 of Brooklyn, N.Y., whom John and Joan enjoyed meeting while visiting campus in May. "When Larry died, I figured he'd left too soon," explains Mr. Durante. "What I've done at Exeter is what others did for Larry, and the students who leave here as Durante scholars will carry forward Larry's legacy."

Exeter, to most alumni/ae, is defined by its intellectual intensity. The varied experiences and points of view they encountered among their fellow students enriched that intellectual experience and made it unique for each Exonian. The Academy is proud of its long-standing commitment to admitting the brightest students regardless of their financial means, and this initiative will protect and expand that commitment. Paying for an Exeter education today takes significantly more of an average family's income than it did 20 years ago. Even with tight fiscal management, a strong Annual Giving Fund and a healthy, growing endowment, the highly personal nature of the Harkness table and residential living make Exeter a labor-intensive (and therefore costly) enterprise. In recent years, as financial need among families has grown, Exeter has been able to offer more financial aid, thanks to expanded resources contributed by generous alumni/ae and parents. During the 1990s in particular, the Academy gained significant ground for middle-income students whose representation in the Exeter student body had been declining over previous decades. Today, 34 percent of the student body receives assistance, versus 23 percent in 1980. Yet scholarship resources still remain limited, and especially in this current economic climate, Exeter is not able to accept all of the talented students it would most like to admit. Building scholarship resources is therefore a top priority so that in the future, a request for financial aid will not impact an admissions decision.