Students honor SMA co-founder with ceremony

After 46 years Dan Kennedy is finally graduating from high school—as an educator. The Sarasota Military Academy co-founder and former head of school retired after more than 15 years at the helm with a special ceremony during morning formations with cadets Tuesday morning.

Kenney recalled the early days of the school to the crowd of cadets, alumnus and parents Tuesday morning in the SMA courtyard.

“Things have certainly changed since 2003,” Kennedy said. “We had no chalk, no desks, no computers, no televisions.”

The decision to retire comes after Kennedy stepped down as the head of school in January 2014 to become the school CEO. In June 2014 the SMA board of directors decided on an 18-week paid leave followed by a 26-week leave as an inactive employee in beginning in July, in an effort to ease the transition to current Head of School Christina Bowman.

Originally Kennedy set out on a career as an engineer for IBM until he volunteered with his wife Tootie to help mentor a youth group for students with difficulty in math and sciences. Kennedy grew the club to include a model rocket program.

“It was great fun, but I wasn’t long before these kids, who were supposedly not good at math and science, they were working on equations to determine the drag coefficient, velocity and all kinds of forces on their model rockets,” Kennedy said.  “It was an amazing experience. We decided at that point that that was kind of a message for us. My wife and I decided collectively to switch over to education.”

Over the span of his 46 years in education, Kennedy served as the principal for Sarasota High School and assistant principal for Riverview High School. During the SMA morning formation Kennedy said to cadets that by far his best days were spent with the military academy.

“I’m very proud of you,” Kennedy said to the formation of cadets. “As you’re choosing your careers, pick something that you enjoy doing, because you’re going to be doing it for a long time.”

Kennedy took the opportunity to shine a spotlight on graduating cadet Whitney Stewart for her leadership at SMA. He presented her with a “personal challenge coin.”

SMA Board Chairman Howard Crowell presented Dan and Tootie Kennedy with a special plaque at the base of the flagpole to commemorate their contributions to the school.