Four Decades Later

Dorm Parents and Boarding Student Still Connected

Along with other boarding students, Xavier Silva ’89 arrived at his dorm at Woodward Academy to a warm welcome from dorm parents David and Beth Widener in the fall of his junior year in 1986. Four decades on, their relationship has endured.

Today, Xavier serves as database administrator in Woodward’s IT Department, while David is associate athletic director, and Beth’s friendly face greets students every day at the Middle School, where she is an administrative assistant.

THE EARLY DAYS

When the three first met, Xavier was in his second year at Woodward and had previously lived in another dorm on campus. He came to Woodward from Saudi Arabia, where the family had moved from Louisiana for his father’s work as an electrical engineer for Aramco. “I wasn’t a military brat; I was an oil brat,” he said.

“Back then, they were bringing in a lot of expats from India, England, and the U. S. When I was in fourth grade, on Valentine’s Day of 1981, we moved to Saudi Arabia.”

American schools on the Aramco compound went to ninth grade, so many families sent their children to boarding school in the U. S. or Europe for high school. “I’m the youngest of three, and I’m the only one who came to Woodward. My oldest brother went to Darlington School. My middle brother went to Brandon Hall. Woodward was a perfect fit for me because it was close to the airport and it had a great academic program.” His parents had purchased a house locally where his grandmother lived, so Xavier boarded five days a week and spent weekends with his grandmother or friends. Twice a year, at Christmas and in the summer, he returned to live with his parents in Saudi Arabia.

David Widener had arrived at Woodward in 1983, originally hired to teach English and Social Studies in seventh and eighth grades. Later, David and his wife, Beth, were asked to move onto campus to serve as dorm parents. “We moved into the dorm in the late summer/early fall of 1984. We had 10th, 11th, and 12th grade boys.” David and Beth got to know Xavier when he moved into the dorm then called Woodward Hall (now newly renovated Brewster Hall, home to the President’s Office and the Stephen A. Belin ’72 GMA/ Woodward Academy History Center). “Junior year, I shared a room with another international student from Honduras, and then during our senior year we had our own rooms on the first floor,” Xavier said.

David recalls his first memories of Xavier. “Not only were we dorm parents, but he also was in my history class. Xavier was a good student.” Xavier remembers enjoying David’s history class, and joining his Magic Club. (David continues the tradition of sponsoring a Magic Club for students to this day.) “We had a great relationship,” Xavier said.

DORM LIFE

Beth recalls that she and David were married about a year when the opportunity to move to Woodward’s campus beckoned. She was working for Delta Air Lines, before joining the Woodward staff in 1989. “There were three sets of dorm parents and the male, David, had the main duty. As a female, I was not in charge of the boys, although they could come to our room if they needed something,” she said. “When we were on duty we would leave our door open and, after they studied, some of the boys would come in and watch television; some would watch ’Knotts Landing’ with me. They really missed having a parent.” Xavier remembers keeping a trunk in his bedroom, filled with care packages from his mom. “About a third of it was full of homemade goods that my mom had made—a lot of peanut butter cookies.”

Dorm parents helped boarding students keep to their daily routines, starting with breakfast. “You had to wake up everybody. If you had daily duty, you’d be the sign in person at breakfast and if somebody didn’t sign in then you went and checked on them. Between 7:30 and 8 a.m., students would eat breakfast and clean their rooms, and then at 8 a.m. everybody had to leave and rooms were inspected. We would inspect the room and make sure the bed was made and clothes were off the floor.”

“We always had very wonderful groups of students and an interesting mix with international students,” David said. “We had students from Germany, Spain, Taiwan, and Honduras, lots of different places,” he added. With no bus system in place at the time, students from around metro Atlanta would board as well. Many local students in an earlier version of today’s Transition Learning Support Program also boarded, and they benefited from study halls held nightly on campus.

On weekends, dorm parents would take boarding students on outings. “We made trips to the festivals, movies, and the mall.

Some of the kids liked to go to a particular fancy restaurant. Most of the time it involved eating and shopping,” David said.

Just as today’s students race to the Dining Hall on chicken tender days, boarding students and dorm families looked forward to meals. “We had our meals here, too, and it was really good food,” Beth said. “On Sundays we had the best lunches in the Dining Hall. Chicken and dressing, roast beef, and green beans; Sunday dinners were a highlight.”

Dean Rusty Slider ’75, then leader of the boarding program, introduced special Wednesday dinners. “Dean Slider wanted the kids to have elements of home,” David said. “We would have steak, baked potatoes, and rolls. They would cook the steaks outside.”

The Wideners’ eldest son, Andrew, born in 1986, was a toddler when Xavier moved in. Beth remembers students lining up in the hall to push him in his red-and-yellow Cozy Coupe car. “It was a really good group of students who were so nice to Andrew,” David said. “They raised their collective money and gave him a pair of basketball shoes when he was born.” The couple still own the black and red Nike Air Jordans.

FAST FORWARD

After moving off campus for about a year, Beth and David were offered dorm parent positions in the Lower Dorm for seventh and eighth graders. Their second son, Nicholas, was one month old. Surrounded by other dorm parents and faculty families, there was a community vibe. “The Upper School kids would go down there for ice cream socials and throw around a Frisbee or football,” Xavier said.

The Wideners lived there until the Academy made the decision to close the boarding program. Day student numbers were growing, meaning the school needed more classroom space, and boarding student numbers had declined. The Academy gave dorm parents a full year to find housing off campus. The Wideners moved out the first week of March 1994.

That same year, Xavier returned to the Academy to join the staff after graduating from college. Initially, he worked in the Admissions Office, leading tours, conducting interviewing and testing, and working on advertising for the school.

While touring with a prospective family, he met fellow alum Julie Oliver ’86, who had returned to teach art to third through sixth graders. “We began dating in the summer of 1996 and married in the fall of 1998. She’s a Vintage Eagle and was here from first grade through 12th grade. Her older brother and sister graduated from Woodward as well as two of her cousins.”

Over the years, the Wideners and Silvas reconnected as colleagues and watched each other’s children grow up and graduate. Andrew Widener ’04 now lives in Washington, D. C., where he works as a genealogy specialist for the Daughters of the American Revolution. Nicholas Widener ’09 continues the family legacy, teaching film studies in the Upper School and coaching cross country. His wife, Leslie, teaches in the Middle School, and they recently had their first child, Ana Grace. Xavier and Julie’s son Alexander ’20, is working for the Centers for Disease Control, and Olivia ’18 is working as an audio engineer after earning her degree in music from University of Georgia, traveling internationally with Drive-by Truckers, MJ Lenderman, and Faye Webster.

Xavier, Beth, and David look back with gratitude on the years of experiences they have shared at Woodward, as student and dorm parents, colleagues, and parents of alumni. “We watched his children grow up, and he watched ours grow up,” Beth said.