All boys. All boarding. Grades 9-12.
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Volunteer of the Month: Ware Smith '99
Twenty years after his graduation, Ware Smith is finding lots of ways to support his alma mater.
As a child, Ware Smith ’99 had no idea Woodberry Forest would become such a huge part of his life. The Roanoke native learned about the school through Sports Camp, but what he thought would be a few summers spent on campus has blossomed into a lifelong relationship with the school.
Now, twenty years later, he’s involved with Woodberry in a wide range of ways — as a OneWoodberry 2019 challenge donor, member of his Reunion Committee, and president of the Dallas Regional Association.
Ware said time and distance have helped him value his time at Woodberry in ways he didn’t as a student.
“Frankly, there were times I didn’t enjoy Woodberry, because I didn’t have the perspective to appreciate how much I actually was enjoying myself,” he says. “The campus is a boy’s paradise, and I was meeting my best friends while being taught what matters. Going to Woodberry is a great blessing.”
Ware went from Woodberry to the University of Virginia, where he studied French. He spent a year of college studying at the Sorbonne and returned to France after graduation for another year of further study. He worked several jobs — ranging from post-Katrina reconstruction projects in New Orleans with Tom Darden ’98 to a seven-month sailing expedition that circumnavigated South America and included a visit to Antarctica — before moving to Dallas to attend business school at Southern Methodist University.
When he’s not volunteering for Woodberry or spending time with his family, Ware works in commercial real estate lending for Frost Bank. He banks for developers headquartered in Dallas, but the projects Frost supports stretch around the country.
In the summer after his first year at SMU Ware met his wife, Alison, on a blind date. Today they’re married with three children: a son, also named Ware, and two daughters, Ruth and Sailor.
Young Ware attended Father-Son Camp last summer with his dad and has become something of a Woodberry fanatic, his father reports. The two look forward to returning this summer for the camp.
Ware said he loves volunteering for Woodberry because it helps him carry forward the lessons he learned as a student.
“As you get older, you get clarity on what things were most important to you, and Woodberry was one of the greatest influences on my life,” he says. “I want to continue to enjoy the relationships I formed at Woodberry, but more importantly I want to help the next generation of boys reach Woodberry. Because Byron [Hulsey ’86] is right. The world needs Woodberry.”
Woodberry Forest School is an exceptional private school community for high school boys in grades nine through twelve. It is one of the top boarding schools in the United States and one of the only all-boys, all-boarding schools in the country.
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Woodberry Forest admits students of any race, color, sexual orientation, disability, religious belief, and national or ethnic origin to all of the rights, privileges, programs, and activities generally accorded or made available to students at the school. It does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, sexual orientation, disability, religious belief, or national or ethnic origin in the administration of its educational policies, admissions policies, scholarship and loan programs, and athletic or other school-administered programs. The school is authorized under federal law to enroll nonimmigrant students.