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By Malcolm C. MacPherson
Rappahannock News Staff Writer
Michael F. Vargo, headmaster of Wakefield Country Day School for the last eight years, is finally going back to school. No one is more' relieved than Vargo himself, who says, “It’s now or never for me.”
Vargo, who will be sorely missed at Wakefield, is referring to the central reason for leaving a post he has loved and devoted himself to over the years.
Before starting out as Wakefield’s chief administrator, he had earned credits years ago at Columbia University toward a Ph.D in Education, which must be completed in 10 years or else the university voids the credits.
“I am frustrated for never having reached that goal,” he said during an interview in his comfortable office on the Wakefield campus near Flint Hill.
But in suspending his education, he brought a gentle personality, formidable intelligence, and a worldly view to the private school and its 180 students, grades K through 12.
He arrived in Rappahannock County in 1996, five years after a schism that broke the school in half, with the establishment of a new campus in The Plains. Vargo previously had been Assistant Dean at Georgetown Preparatory School in Rockville, Md., and at the time was looking to become the head of a private school, like Wakefield Country Day, with a strong academic program and a classical education with an emphasis on vocabulary development and English.
When he arrived, Wakefield was struggling to make ends meet, Vargo says, and he proudly points to an increased student body (from 143 students up to 211, before settling
See VARGO, Page B8
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