Culver unveils sculpture of Gignilliat, school’s longest serving superintendent

Gen. Leigh R. Gignilliat, the longest-serving head of schools at Culver Academies, an innovative educator and founder of the Black Horse Troop, is once again keeping a watchful eye over campus.

A bronze statue depicting Gignilliat, a gentleman from Georgia, with the hint of a smile, a welcoming military bearing and an inviting outstretched hand, was dedicated during a ceremony on campus Friday afternoon.

“His gesture symbolizes openness, a welcoming spirit and a call to join the Culver family,” Sophia Frazee ’26 wrote in The Vedette. “The statue is not just a commemoration of a powerful leader, but a message of inclusivity, urging current and future students to connect with the school’s history and their place within it.”

The ceremony was attended by students, faculty, staff, alumni and members of the Culver Educational Foundation board of trustees, including the general’s grandson, Paul Gignilliat ’49 W’43, a Culver Educational Foundation board member since 1981.

Doug Bird ’90, Ed.D., Culver’s head of schools, said Gen. Gignilliat not only defined the office of head of schools, which back then was known as superintendent, “but more importantly, he defined the school and the camps, taking Henry Harrison Culver’s vision to lengths even our founder himself may not have envisioned.”

“He possessed a remarkable gift of foresight; he seemed to know the direction society was going, with the rise of modern ways of doing business, but also the specter of war,” Bird said.

Miles White ’73, chairman of the Culver Board of Trustees, said Gignilliat played a large role in making Culver what it is, and has played a major role in the lives of thousands of Culver graduates.

“My beliefs and values, my commitment to service, my thinking on leadership and honor, it all originated here. And my experience was not unique. Thousands of Culver graduates feel the same way. That is due in no small part to Leigh Gignilliat,” White said.

 

 

The Gignilliat statue is looking at a campus that has changed quite a bit since his retirement in 1939 and his death in 1952, including the addition of the Culvers Girls Academy 54 years ago. But some of his basic educational beliefs about teaching teenagers to become responsible leaders are still being used.

“If you look at the history of Culver, outside of Henry Harrison Culver himself, (Gignilliat was) likely the most impactful person,” Bird said in an interview. “The status of the school, the programming some of which we have in place to this day, was established and developed through his leadership. … Culver wouldn’t be where it is today without his leadership.”

Bird said the school has been searching for decades for the best way to honor Gignilliat, who had a building named for him erected in 1956. Bird said school leaders decided now was that time and thought the best place for the statue was in the heart of campus, between South and Main barracks, looking toward the Logansport Gate, a memorial to the effort he led when Culver cadets helped rescue nearly 1,500 citizens from the Logansport, Indiana, flood in 1913.

The statue is slightly larger than life, just as Gignilliat was in real life, as he played a crucial role in guiding the school from just after its founding, persuading academy founder Henry Harrison Culver to buy 16  horses from the Cleveland Cavalry’s Black Horse Troop after reading about the horses appearing in the inauguration of President William McKinley in 1897, to its growth into one of the nation’s top military boarding schools.

Sculptor Harry Weber, who has statues in 27 states, Africa, China and the Bahamas, explained he makes statues at 110 percent of life size because when they are built at 100 percent “they are disappointingly small.”

“They don’t do statues of dull people or small men. You do it of imposing things. So you want a structure a little bit larger than life, as they were in life,” he said. “It looks life size when you look at it.”

Weber, who attended the unveiling, said the biggest challenge was making a statue that “looked like he was alive, and he might move at any moment, but showed the image that people really enjoyed of him, that he was the very picture of military bearing.”

 

Weber is known for making sculptures of sports figures, such as Bobby Orr, Stan Musial and Pelé, and historical figures, including Dred Scott, Lewis and Clark, and Daniel Boone.

“He’s a world-class sculptor and we were happy he was willing to do the project,” Bird said. “He’s been great to work with.”

The 82-year-old Weber says he wants his art to have an “immediate emotional impact.” The emotional impact he’s looking for with the Gignilliat statue is “the satisfaction that he has in the students under his charge.

“Whether he is welcoming the matriculating class or whether he is congratulating those who are graduating or whether he is simply advising somebody who is there, it is that connection between student and him I want to get across,” he said.

Bird said he hopes the statue might inspire some students to learn more about the school’s history, even if it takes a few years or whether it happens at a reunion in a few decades.

Gignilliat was a renowned educator, administrator and marketer who established Culver’s innovative leadership program, believing a system of constructive persuasion was better than intimidating coercion.

“His ideas around the turn of the century were pretty unusual, that teenagers could be owners of their own leadership – could be peer leaders and servant leaders,” said Jeff Kenney, archives manager for the Culver Academies Museum.

Gignilliat became commandant of cadets at Culver at the age of 21, shortly after graduating from the Virginia Military Institute, and served in that position for 13 years. He then served as Culver superintendent from 1910 to 1939.

Among his other accomplishments:

·       Guided Culver through two precarious times, helping the school to survive the Spanish flu pandemic in 1918-19 and the Great Depression in 1929-39.

• Frequently brought Hollywood movie news cameras to campus.
• Played a key role in opening the Summer Naval School and eventually Woodcraft Camp.
• Led CMA cadets and staff to Logansport to rescue flood victims in 1913.
• Sent the Black Horse Troop to ride in the two Woodrow Wilson inaugural parades and escort other dignitaries on several occasions.
• Invited Gen. John J. Pershing to campus in 1922, when “Black Jack” was considered the most popular man in America.
• Helped make Culver a leading school in the formation of the national ROTC program. 
• Initiated the Iron Gate ceremony in 1911 and the annual Veteran’s Day ceremony in 1924.
• Led troops in combat in World War I and oversaw a massive and lifesaving food distribution effort in a significant war-torn area of Europe.

The school also took the opportunity to recognize the contributions of Gignilliat’s grandson, Paul, and Paul’s wife, Ellen, by unveiling a portrait of the couple, who were in attendance, in Gignilliat Hall.

 

 

 

Their oldest daughter, Mary Gignilliat W’79 SS’82, spoke for the family, saying she was excited to celebrate her great-grandfather’s and parents contributions to Culver.  She said her brother-in-law, Thomas Hinkes, added a term to the family lexicon: “to Culver.”

“My father goes Culvering when he passionately and reverently describes to the uninitiated the stories of Culver and his grandfather’s role in putting Culver on the map,” she said.

Paul and Ellen Gignilliat created the Culture in Chicago program that provides students, faculty and staff members three opportunities a year to see a play or musical, a performance of the Hubbard Street Dance Company, visit the Chicago Art Institute, attend the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, or attend the Chicago Shakespeare Theater.

They also provide scholarships for selected Culver students to attend the Interlochen Summer Arts Camp and supported the Culver choir and orchestra performances at Carnegie Hall in New York City, the Mozart International Choral Festival in Salzburg, Austria, and the Rome International Choral Festival.

“Ellen and Paul have long promoted the arts here,” Bird said. “The interest the Gignilliats have in promoting the arts at Culver, in order to bring them on an equivalent footing, exemplifies the idea of balance and moderation that are a hallmark of the Culver experience.”

The ceremonies began with retired Army Lt. Col. Kelly Jordan, Culver’s commandant of cadets from 2008-2013, who just released an 806-page book, “Culver’s Exemplar: The Remarkable Life of Leigh R. Gignilliat, giving a 20-minute talk on Gignilliat’s life.

“I believe he is the embodiment of the spirit Culver, which resonated with him, and I think it is altogether fitting and proper that we are gathered here to honor him, honor his legacy, his grandson and to dedicate a statue on campus to this true exemplar of Culver,” Jordan said.

The portrait and the sculpture will ensure that Culver students will continue to know the valuable contributions the Gignilliats provided Culver Academies as the general will welcome new students to Culver for generations to come.