GMS History The History of Greenbrier Military School | Page 27

the home became the residence of Maj. Bob Keene (with wife Sally and
daughter Cynthia), faculty member and public speaking teacher. In 1955,
the number passed 300, and by 1957enrollment was up to 357, even though
the number of college students had dropped to 31. In 1957 the junior college
was discontinued and only one post-graduate year remained. In 1960, the
enrollment was strong and healthy with 374 cadets.
Over the years, GMS had cadets from around the world, from places
as diverse as Spain, Hawaii, and Lebanon. Besides foreign students,
American students had parents who were in the military, in the Foreign
Service or U.S. Diplomatic Corps, or worked for international
corporations. From reading through old editions of the Brier Patch, which
can be found at the GMS Museum in the West Virginia School of
Osteopathic Medicine’s Sharp Alumni Center, as well as at the Greenbrier
Historical Society at North House and a few on display at the General Lewis
Inn, one learns much about the classes and companies that comprised GMS
in a given year. In 1947 all the classes had female sponsors. In later Brier
Patches, of course, all companies had female sponsors (sisters, mothers, or
girlfriends of cadets) and there was a Queen of the Brier, but only in the war
years of the 1940s were female sponsors on nearly every page.
Discipline
Cadets had rules and regulations, and following them was all part of
their military training. The 1925 catalog (p. 129) states: “Cadets must
always be clean and neat in person and dressed according to school
regulations and deport themselves as gentlemen both at school and in
public.” Gambling, chewing tobacco, spitting on the floor, using or having
cigarettes in one’s possession, and using profane or vulgar language were
forbidden. The penalty for these offenses was one hundred hours of penalty
tour for the first offense and expulsion for a repetition. A penalty tour was
colloquially known as “walking the beat.” Cadets who were assigned
demerits for minor infractions of the rules walked them off by marching on
the walkway around the flagpole on the front campus. Demerits also were
walked off in the Quadrangle during inclement weather, and chores like
polishing the brass cannons could work down demerits as well. In modern
times, as in 1925, cadets “found guilty of drinking intoxicants. . . will be
immediately dismissed.” And “hazing in any form is not tolerated.” As a
final reminder to parents, the 1925-26 catalog states plainly: “If you have
not confidence enough to allow us to control him [your son], and do not
intend to make him conform to the regulations of the School, do not send
him. It is injustice to us, puts you in a false position, and is ruinous to your
child.”
The Moore brothers knew what they wanted, and obviously parents
wanted it, too, for fifty years. The 1920-21 catalog (p. 58) states their