Sgros honored at Trustee Legacy Luncheon

A very special event was held in the ballroom of the Piedmont Driving Club on April 9 as outgoing Head of School Dr. Anthony Sgro said farewell to friends and supporters in the Atlanta area.

The School’s Trustee Legacy Luncheon honored Dr. Sgro and his wife, Faulkner Sgro, for their eight years of service at Rabun Gap-Nacoochee School. Nearly 150 friends, trustees, alumni, and supporters gathered for the event.

Dr. Sgro will leave Rabun Gap this summer to take the Head of School position at his alma mater, Asheville School. Under Dr. Sgro’s leadership, Rabun Gap-Nacoochee School has more than doubled its enrollment, serving 600 students from 15 states and more than 50 countries, and maintained its commitment to financial access, with 75 percent of students receiving financial aid. His tenure saw the opening of the Niles Bolton Middle School Complex in 2013, the establishment of the Evelyne Sheats Lower School in 2017, and the construction of the Richard and John Woodruff Dining Hall, completed in 2019.

The Reverend Dr. George Wirth, a trustee at Rabun Gap-Nacoochee School and former pastor of First Presbyterian Church of Atlanta, addressed Dr. and Mrs. Sgro with Psalm 121:8 — “The LORD shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore,” — and reminded them that they are in the “sweet spot” of their lives.  

“We will send you off after Commencement with tears in our eyes and joy in our hearts and gratitude deep down in our souls for a job very, very well done,” Wirth said. “You and your family will be greatly missed at Rabun Gap. We are grateful beyond measure for the myriad of ways that you have touched all of our hearts.”

For Dr. Sgro, the moment was less about the impact he’s made on Rabun Gap, and more about how the School has changed him.

“On a very personal level, I have been changed for the better by Rabun Gap,” Sgro said. “I have always spent my life in privilege, in schools created to serve the very small and narrow margin of the world. Rabun Gap isn’t that place,” he said. “I feel like God has worked through Rabun Gap to affect and change my heart, to make me see something broader — to see education in a very different way, to see education as it can be and for what good it can do in the world today. We can all get along, we can all engage with one another, we can all celebrate… Rabun Gap is a place where the world can be.”

Margaret Carton, chair of the Rabun Gap-Nacoochee School Board of Trustees, presented an official board resolution honoring Dr. Sgro for his legacy. The resolution established the Faulkner and Anthony Sgro Study Abroad Fund. This fund honors Dr. and Mrs. Sgro’s commitment to international educational access for all students.  It will financially assist domestic students to study abroad at Rabun Gap’s campus in Spoleto, Italy and beyond. Click here to donate.