Jay Dickerson understood how much that bridge mattered. A beloved fixture of the Middle School from 1967–1986, “Mr. D.” chaired the Middle School Social Studies Department for many years, taught history and civics, and even spent a stretch teaching math. His work reached well beyond the classroom, as he prepared young people for a wider, more demanding world. Jay came to Lovett from Westminster, and after 19 years on the Riverbank, he returned there to teach and coach.

He believed teamwork and physical activity were essential to a well-rounded middle school experience. Jay ran Lovett’s intramural program and started a football league for sixth and seventh graders. The Lovett-only league had four teams. Jay coached two of them, and volunteers led the other two. In addition to building fitness and teamwork, the league gave young players the thrill of taking the field at Lovett’s varsity stadium and set many of them on a path to success in high school athletics and beyond. He also coached seventh grade girls’ and eighth grade boys’ basketball.

Jay was a true Atlanta pioneer in experiential education. Each summer, he led groups into the wilderness of the American West, the lake country of Canada, and the Appalachian Mountains. Many students, and sometimes their parents, discovered the wilds of Canada by canoe, the rigors of camp at Hard Labor Creek, and the fun of Disney World under his guidance. The wilderness trips took young people far from their everyday city lives and taught them to rely on one another as they met the challenges of the backcountry.

Beyond Lovett, Jay helped found High Meadows School and Camp in Roswell, which he owned for several years. The natural world sits at the heart of learning there. Its programs carried participants from the mountains to the sea and taught them the value of protecting ecosystems in a rapidly developing world.

When the Lovett magazine caught up with Jay in 1997, he was living in Vinings and as active as ever, skiing, playing plenty of golf, canoeing, camping, and backpacking. He could be found running the Lovett track almost every day. Looking back on his years here, he said, “When you stay in teaching long enough to teach the children of some you have already taught, you must enjoy what you are doing, and I loved teaching and coaching at Lovett. We had an outstanding faculty, the students were bright and fun, and the parents were supportive. It was a special place, and I feel privileged to have had that experience. There are many fond memories.”

Jay was ahead of his time in pairing a traditional classroom education with hands-on learning in the outdoors. He carried that work well into his nineties. He died on May 12, 2026, at the age of 96.

His belief in learning through nature lives on at Lovett. Longtime science teacher Bob Braddy played a key role in acquiring and supporting the Siempre Verde cloud forest preserve and research center in Ecuador, and each year Lovett students travel to the Robert and Connie Braddy Research Station to learn about the work being done there.

Jay Dickerson would be pleased.

By Lloyd Brown ’75