An occasional look at former Loomis Chaffee community members whose work helped shape the school.    

“Not many people get to commute across the lawn to their job,” Chuck Vernon wrote in the centennial history of Loomis Chaffee published in 2014. “I couldn’t wait to get to work at 6 a.m.” 

And if there was something on that lawn, such as a piece of trash, a student might be picking it up as part of the student-faculty work program that Chuck led from 1969 to 2000. The program continues to this day.  

“Why were we involved in this effort?” Chuck wrote. “It involved community-building.” 

Building. Chuck, who died on October 18, was all about community and all about building. 

He was a talented woodworker, creating pieces of furniture, many of which are owned and treasured by faculty and staff. When a child was born in the community, Chuck gave the family a rocking horse that he had crafted from hockey sticks and other found wood.

Seth Beebe ‘78, the director of advancement services and operations who coached with Chuck for a time, recalls “wood-carved game balls after every win that often recognized some unsung hero.”  

And much more. “I have a number of stools that he made in his woodworking shop as mementoes of a season,” Seth recalled. “When I got married, Chuck built for us a beautiful dining room table as a present. A barroom finish! Twelve coats of veneer. And, yes, he built our [daughter] Charlotte a rocking horse out of hockey sticks and other found material. He also built her a stepping stool that she used growing up to brush her teeth.”   

For a table he built for Mary Coleman Forrester, the director of marketing, Chuck told her in a hand-written note exactly where the material came from and how to care for the piece of furniture. “This table is a real amalgamation,” he wrote. The top came from an old door in Flagg Hall, a red oak veneer with pine and poplar core. Some ash wood from a storeroom in the Clark Center for Science & Mathematics was used; the legs came from old tables in the dining hall. Chestnut, gathered from the basement of the First Congregational Church of Windsor, was used for the trim. “It is at least 300–350 years old. It was probably cut in Windsor. But chestnut was blighted out in the late 1900s and doesn’t grow around here any more,” he wrote. A barroom finish would enable the table to stand up to heat and cold, Chuck noted, along with a reminder that something right out of a 350-degree oven needs a trivet underneath.       

Ever the builder, Chuck, known by many as “Bruno,” was instrumental in establishing the girls ice hockey program at Loomis Chaffee. The New England Prep School Athletic Conference named the Elite Division championship tournament in his honor. In 2013 the Boston Blades professional women’s ice hockey team honored him for his role in developing women’s hockey.

“I feel extremely fortunate to have had the opportunity to coach and work with Chuck in hockey for my first nine years working on the Island,” girls varsity hockey head coach Liz Leyden said. “He would scoff at the fact I call him a mentor since technically he was my assistant coach, but I am the coach and person I am today because of him. He had a way of deeply caring about sports while also being able to keep them in perspective, a way of pushing people to do a little more and to be a little better for their teammates next to them, and a way of teaching people about the important things in life through his daily actions, big and small. His impact on girls hockey, as well as the entire athletic program, cannot be overstated.” 

In 2017 Loomis honored Chuck for his 50 years of coaching LC students in a range of boys and girls sports, from ice hockey to lacrosse, from soccer to football, even one season of basketball. Chuck was a part-time coach in 1967–68, was on the faculty full time from September 1968 until he retired in June 2000, and continued to coach part time from 2000 to 2019. By one estimate he coached about 135 teams in 51 years.  

“He was a brilliant coach,” Seth said. “He was an expert at team-building and made the team he was coaching feel important. I coached girls JV soccer for a couple of years with Chuck. He put out a New England girls JV soccer newsletter, published standings, etc. As a coach, he was able to break things down and simplify the game. We would practice these basics constantly. He simplified every game into a few important actions and drilled on those.” 

Somehow, along with all he did, he also found time for more. 

 "For any number of years in the late 1980s to 1990s, he would produce a newsletter both for the school community and for parents that highlighted weekly the progress/successes of every interscholastic team from varsity to III,” Seth said. “And he highlighted a lot of individual students who otherwise would not have been recognized. It was another community-builder.” 

When Chuck was honored by Loomis in 2017, Katie Mandigo ’12, who had been a girls ice hockey captain, wrote that she could still remember Chuck saying, “Everything but the kitchen sink.” What that meant, said Katie, was to hit the ice harder than you had before. “That phrase epitomizes Bruno as a coach, except Bruno also gives the kitchen sink,” Katie said. 

Chuck coached many standout girls ice hockey players, including Gretchen Ulion Silverman ’90, a member of the gold-medal-winning U.S. Olympic team in 1998. She scored the first goal in the championship game in the first Olympics in which women’s ice hockey was contested. 

Chuck was an excellent athlete himself. He played football, lacrosse, and hockey at Williston. The 1962 graduate was inducted into the Williston Hall of Fame in 2023. He captained Williston’s hockey and lacrosse teams as a senior and shared the award given to the top athlete in the school. Beyond the stats — Chuck scored 21 goals in hockey his senior season — the way he carried himself led to a unique honor for someone so young.  

The father of one of Chuck’s teammates was so impressed with Chuck that in 1962 he had a solid brass victory bell made with this inscription: “The Williston Victory Bell dedicated to Charles D. Vernon ’62 who proved sportsmanship is the true victory.” According to a 2013 story in the school newspaper, The Willistonian, the bell “is a symbol of unity and tradition in this community. Every tour given to a prospective student stops at the victory bell and hears about the many facts and rituals about it.” Chuck went on to play lacrosse and hockey at Dartmouth College, from which he graduated in 1966. 

Many have remembered Chuck on social media. 

“Bruno made you feel seen in a crowded room,” wrote one person. “My life is better because of you.” “Rest easy,” writes another, “and know that you made a massive impact on so many of us.” Yet another shared a quote from Chuck saying, “Teaching at Loomis Chaffee is really an exercise in sowing seeds that you hope will grow and provide a harvest at some later time.”  The person then wrote, “That about sums it up. You sowed the seeds. You watered them ... and watched the next generation of crops.” 

One of those seeds that sprouted was Seth. 

“He was never formally my coach,” Seth said, “but he was my advisor as a sophomore at Loomis and coached me up till the end. Last year, while I was in my first rounds of chemotherapy, he came every morning at 8 a.m. to get me out and walking. He did not miss a day if he could help it, and we walked as far as I could. After six months, he ‘graduated’ me.” 

“He believed greatly in the simple benefits of hard work and physical fitness,” Seth continued. “Until he became ill, he was walking up to 10 miles a day. Ever the organizer, he had a whole group of senior citizens that he labelled the ‘Windsor Walkers.’ They would meet every afternoon and walk in Windsor’s neighborhoods.”  

Back when Chuck helped start the work program, he was working with then-Headmaster Fred Torrey. They wanted to revive first Headmaster Nathaniel Batchelder’s original vision that students be involved in “the useful labor of the school,” one that would allow them to gain “the discipline of life [that] comes from the normal acts of living.” 

Normal acts of living. Like teaching and coaching and raising a family (Jill and Andrew ’91) on campus with wife Jamie, who died in 2022. He met his wife at the Jersey Shore. Chuck interviewed her for a serving job at a restaurant where he was a manager after college. They were married in Bay Head, N.J. on August 17, 1969, in the church just down the street from the house where they would spend 50 summers together at the Jersey Shore. 

Like giving gifts that mark a birth or hand-crafting a piece of furniture with love and care. 

Like an uncanny ability to know everyone by name.  

Like making a difference in someone’s life by penning hand-written notes, a special touch generally lost these days.  

Normal? Maybe. But above and beyond, too. 

There will be a Celebration of Life for Chuck at Loomis Chaffee on Sunday, November 24, at 10 a.m. with a luncheon to follow. Chuck's obituary can be found HERE.

Donations in his memory can be made online HERE or to The Loomis Chaffee School, for the Charles D. Vernon Teaching Fund, Alumni/Development, 4 Batchelder Road, Windsor, CT 06095.