History of Admiral Farragut Academy

PLEASE NOTE THIS IS A WORK IN PROGRESS AND WILL SOON BE A COMPREHENSIVE HISTORY OF AFA INCLUDING NORTH AND SOUTH SCHOOLS AS MY TIME ALLOWS ME TO FINISH!

Admiral Farragut Academy was founded in Pine Beach, New Jersey, in 1933 under the leadership of Admiral S. S. Robison, USN, former Superintendent of the United States Naval Academy, and Brigadier General Cyrus S. Radford, USMC.

In 1945, the Florida school was established in St. Petersburg. The school was designated as the nations only Naval Honor School, which allowed the academy a certain number of guaranteed appointments to the various service acadamies including the Naval Academy, West Point and Air Force Academy. Admiral Farragut Academy in Saint Petersburg, Florida now continues this tradition.

Throughout the history of the school it boasted over 99% college attendence rate. The school was the only secondary school in the country to have a naval educational program approved by Congress and the Department of the Navy.

In the fall of 1990, Admiral Farragut Academy in Pine Beach became coeducational, breaking a fifty-six-year tradition of only enrolling boys. In 1992, the two schools became separate corporations under the laws of the respective states in which they reside.

The school had been in financial straits for many years, and by the '90s the Board of Trustees had been taken over by a group of local businessmen who were more interested in developing the property than they were in keeping the school open. Although the alumni had raised enough money to pay off the school's $1.8 million debt, the board didn't accept the money even after the alumni offered over $2 million. This, in and of itself, was a travesty.

In 1994, Admiral Farragut Academy in Pine Beach, New Jersey graduated it's final class and closed it's doors forever.

One of the real tragedies is that the contents of the museum were not given to the southern campus when it would not accept the northern campus' debt and were auctioned off or sold privately. Some of the items are in private homes and some show up on eBay from time to time.

After closure, the campus remained abandoned for several years and was eventually demolished. The St. Petersburg Admiral Farragut Academy took possession of academic records from the Pine Beach School and integrated its alumni into a combined Alumni Association located in St. Petersburg.

Among it's alumni are a number admirals and generals (too numerous to count and name); Rear Admiral Alan B. Shepard, NASA Mercury Astronaut, and Moon Explorer; and Lorenzo Llamas, actor.

Admiral Billard Academy existed in New London, CT as a similar school to Admiral Farragut Academy from 1936 to 1953. Alumni can connect at the Rusty Rudder website.

After the school closed, there were many efforts and ovations to develop the campus and use the existing infrastructure. Many people (including alumni and corporations) investigated renovating Farragut Hall back to it's old glory but ultimately the cost to renovate outweighed the cost to knock the buildings down. Pine Beach used some of the campus for training of the Fire Station and Summer camps for a few years.

Currently, the site of Admiral Farragut Academy has many highly priced homes on most of the campus. The only remaining building is Radford Hall, old site of sick bay and the girls dorm. Thanks to individuals such as Patrick Sheehan, 5 acres of the site is preserved as a park.

There is currently a movement afoot to Save Sick Bay (Radford Hall) buy purchasing the building and turning into a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving the heritage of the school and for the betterment of the community.