History of LWS
Lowell Whiteman, Our founder (1918-2001)
Lowell leading boys on a trail ride in the 1940's.
As early as the 1930’s, Lowell Whiteman had a dream to start a boy’s summer camp in the Rocky Mountains. He felt it would compliment a famous all-girls camp nearby called Perry Mansfield, which specialized in theater in dance. An avid camper, outdoorsman and equestrian, he saw an opportunity to provide young men with the chance to grow and test their mettle in the surrounding wilderness doing the same things he himself enjoyed growing up.
Lowell was a staff member of the Perry Mansfield dance camp for a number of years and his education included a Bachelor’s degree from Pomona College in California, as well as a stint at the American Theater Wing in New York City. He had also studied acting under Lee Strasberg and dance with Hanya Holm. All of these experiences certainly helped give Lowell’s dream shape.
Lowell Whiteman as a Navy Officer.
Lowell’s vision was sidetracked for four years while serving as a deck officer for the Navy in WWII. He was involved in five invasions in the Mediterranean Theater and ultimately awarded a Navy Commendation for an amphibious landing on the island of Elba. Upon his return to the United States in 1946, he opened the Lowell Whiteman Ranch for boys on land given to him by his mother, Olive. She believed in his dream of education in ‘the great outdoors.’
Lowell’s philosophy for the camp was well known and novel at the time – all campers learned to ride and handle a horse – everything from riding and grooming to fence building. Lowell felt viewing the Colorado Rocky Mountains from the back of a horse enriched the human spirit. He combined this philosophy with a comprehensive camping program. The idea that “roughing it” builds character and teaches values sometimes missing in modern life. Learning, he said, was a daily occupation that should continue for a lifetime.
Campers learned to work with their hands; all had chores; and with them, a sense of sharing the load, an important part of growing up, according to Lowell’s philosophy. Students who had never had such opportunities before took with them a wealth of rare experiences and stories to tell. The word spread about the Whiteman Ranch.
The Lowell Whiteman Ranch grew and prospered as an all-boys camp for more than a decade. In 1957 Lowell’s philosophy was expanded to include academics when the ranch camp transitioned to the Lowell Whiteman School and became a private, co-educational college preparatory boarding school. Lowell’s dream now made room for desks and challenging academics; a natural companion to outdoor adventure and his belief that all learning was a daily occupation.
Camping and outdoor education are still pillars of the LWS program, and the horse program continues as one of the longest-running in the United States. Activities added over the years such as climbing, biking, kayaking, cayoneering and skiing follow the adventure credo Lowell established. The Foreign Trip program was a natural extension of Lowell’s experiential educational program and his adventure spirit. In the early days, he felt the foreign trips should include Third World countries where students could fully experience life without the creature comforts. He wanted them to be challenged in a way that would make them adapt to, and embrace, what they were seeing and learning. Lowell felt it was essential for students to learn to value their own cultures and freedoms, as well as to understand and appreciate those of other countries.
This type of outdoor adventure, travel and cultural immersion became known as “experiential,” spreading to other schools. We call it simply The Lowell Whiteman Experience.
Lowell remained intimately connected and involved with the school until his death in 2001.