From the Perkins Family:

Many of you have already heard of the death  on November 1 of Cliff Perkins, former Verde Valley School teacher from 1955 to 1989. Because  many  of you have written, phoned  and visited us with words of sympathy and the comfort of wonderful memories,  we would like to thank  you and give you  some of the highlights of his life.

Born Clifford C. Perkins  in Wilmington, Delaware on October 1, 1923,  his  happy childhood  and youth  furnished him with  a wealth of  rich detail  which he incorporated in the many stories he continued to write throughout his life. He graduated from P.S. Dupont High School where he began a career as a radio announcer in his senior year.  In 1944 he entered the U. S. Army, serving in the Pacific as Staff Sergeant, and was head of Armed Forces Radio in Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan at the end of World War II.    He entered Hobart College in 1946  where he met and later married Marguerite "Maggie” Hymes.   Graduating in 1949 with a  B.A. degree in History and Political Science, he went on to Columbia University, receiving  an M.A. degree  in American Literature in 1951.  Later  he did further study in American History at U.C. Berkeley and at Harvard.

He began his teaching career at the Perkiomen School in Pennsylvania.  While there, he read an article in Arizona Highways about a new school in Sedona, Arizona, the Verde Valley School.  Its emphasis on international relations and its program of field trips and  studies of  Southwest Indian and Mexican  cultures  interested and excited him.  He met with the school’s founder, Hamilton Warren, who offered him and his wife  positions on the faculty.  In 1955 Cliff began teaching American literature and history at the Verde Valley School and continued  to teach there for 34 years.      

Cliff also served the school  over the years in various  other capacities. He directed the school’s summer camp in the early years, was in charge of West Dorm  (later named Perkins Hall in his honor)  for 13 years, was Dean of Students for  five years, led field trips to Mexico and the reservations and later was head of the field trip program .  He initiated  and took part in a number of projects such as the building of Classroom 7 and,  particularly dear to him,  the building of the Thoreau Hut with his students in the mid sixties, an idea that caught fire at a time when they were studying Walden.  He  chaired the history department for many years and developed several new courses, one of them a study of the Negro in America, and another a U.S. History honors seminar.

Throughout his teaching career Cliff continued his personal writing,  completing  a novel, a screenplay, and numerous short sketches and stories, as well as keeping up a continuous correspondence with friends and former students.

Cliff was a beloved teacher who challenged, inspired and entertained his students.  He was dedicated to teaching and to Verde Valley School.  Upon his retirement he was given the title of Dean of Faculty Emeritus in honor of his many contributions to the school and to generations of students.  In his retirement he continued to write his stories and memoirs, and to enjoy discovering new writers and new ideas about history and politics.  In the cards and letters his family has received from former students, colleagues  and friends, many things about Cliff are mentioned again and again.  Among them,  his sense of humor, his contagious enthusiasm, his joy in teaching, his expansive story telling, his generosity of spirit, his warmth and ease with all persons, his ability to instill in his students a love of learning.  One of the great comforts to his family is the knowledge that in Cliff’s lifetime he experienced the love and respect of many of his former students who frequently wrote and  visited him, sharing with him memories of their days together and their enjoyment of his classes.

Preceded in death by his infant daughter Laura and 17 year-old son Thomas, Cliff is survived by Marguerite, his wife of 61 years, son Jeffrey and his wife Cris, son Joseph and his wife Liz, a sister Dorothy Craig, two grandsons and two step-granddaughters.  We would like to thank all those who have shared with us memories of Cliff. We are  tentatively considering a celebration of Cliff’s life sometime in the next few months, perhaps in the days before the June reunion.