TMI Episcopal

TMI was founded in 1893 by the Rt Revd James Steptoe Johnston, DD, Second Bishop of West Texas in the Protestant Episcopal Church. Johnston was a native Mississippian of the planter class who had participated in twelve engagements in the Civil War. He fought most of these battles with the Eleventh Mississippi Regiment.

Johnston's earliest name for his school in San Antonio was "The West Texas School for Boys," which was quickly changed to "West Texas Military Academy" (WTMA). In 1926, the name was changed to Texas Military Institute.

At the time of the school's foundation, San Antonio lay on the edge of the American frontier, with forts all along the high ground east of the Rio Grande. Though Bishop Johnston wanted his boys to receive as good an education as boys anywhere in America, he knew that a New England–style prep school would not work in West Texas, so he created a premier academic school with a full-fledged military discipline. The specifically Southern boarding school tradition was not often military.

Bishop Johnston saw the need to provide young men with a classical liberal and scientific education that would enable them to go on to careers in business, agriculture and ranching, the Church, the civil service, and the officer corps of the United States Army. He set out to develop "the Christian character amongst the rising generation... for character is the only true wealth." He assumed that "the best use of wealth is to coin it into character." The quotation shows that WTMA was part of the "church school movement" of the nineteenth century, which featured character formation as the means to personal success in many areas, including academic pursuits. Hence, WTMA may be counted among other church schools such as Saint James in Maryland (1842), St. Paul's in New Hampshire (1856), Shattuck-Saint Mary's in Minnesota (1858), St. Mark's School (1865) and Groton School (1884), both in Massachusetts, and St. George's School in Rhode Island (1896).

The first rector and headmaster of WTMA/TMI, the Reverend Allan Lucien Burleson, had been prepared at the Shattuck School, founded by J. Lloyd Breck in 1858. Breck was a protege of the great William Augustus Muhlenberg, "father" of the church school in America. Burleson served as the head of school between 1893 and 1900. WTMA was largely funded by donations from wealthy residents of the eastern seaboard, many of whom had been inspired by speeches Johnston had given on the importance of academic and moral education for all young men.[5] When the school first opened, there were just six teachers and twelve students.[6]

One of the great educators in Texas history took over WTMA in 1926. Dr W. W. Bondurant changed the name to "Texas Military Institute." In 1936 Bishop Capers, feeling the pinch created by the Great Depression, sold TMI to Bondurant, who sold the school back to the Episcopal Church in 1952. Back in 1926 Bondurant had merged the Upper School of San Antonio Academy with TMI. Bondurant was a strong Presbyterian layman, yet the chaplain remained an Episcopal priest and the Book of Common Prayer continued to be used in daily chapel services.[7]

By the 1930s, the school was considered by some to be one of the best schools in America.[8]

Although Bishop Johnston had, in part, intended the school to train young men for seminary and eventual ordination in the Episcopal Church, the school has always been open to students of any religious faith or lack thereof.

The JROTC, or Corps of Cadets, has been optional for girls since their admission in 1972, and for boys since 1974.[9]

From 2005 to 2017, the school presented itself by the name of TMI: The Episcopal School of Texas. However, in December 2017 under the new leadership of its 31st headmaster, the Rev. Scott J. Brown, the school decided to change its official title to TMI Episcopal.

Three Presidents of the United States have visited the school. The first was William Taft. The next was John F. Kennedy, who visited on November 21, 1963, the day before his assassination. The most recent was George W. Bush. Future President Theodore Roosevelt also visited when he was in San Antonio recruiting for the Rough Riders.

In the summer of 2009, Katharine Jefferts Schori, the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, visited the school and gave a speech on the importance of Episcopal schools to the overall mission of the Church.[10]

TMI has moved three times, each time relocating to the edge of an expanding city. The first campus was on Government Hill, next to Fort Sam Houston; the second was in Alamo Heights; and the current campus, dating from 1989, is in far northwest San Antonio, on the edge of the Texas Hill Country. The campus is modern in architecture and built almost entirely from local limestone. Features of the campus include:

• The Frost Athletic Center is a large gym, incorporating two basketball/volleyball courts, two squash courts, a rifle range and a natatorium with a half-olympic length pool, as well as the school infirmary and offices for athletic and JROTC staff.
• Coates Hall, the main academic building, incorporates most of the classrooms, labs and faculty offices. It is built around two courtyard gardens with open-air hallways. A small greenhouse built alongside Coates hall is used for botany lessons.
• The All Saints' Chapel is a 500-seat modern chapel, used for daily service of Morning Prayer and for Eucharistic services on the first Wednesday of every month as well as for quarterly school Evensongs, choral concerts and the annual baccalaureate Mass. The chapel, designed by alumnus Chris Carson of Ford, Powell & Carson, was recognized as one of the best religious buildings of 2009 by the Interfaith Forum on Religion, Art and Architecture, a knowledge community of the American Institute of Architects.[11] The chapel organ is a two manual, 18 voice Schoenstein & Co. opus.[12]
• The Johnston Amphitheatre is used for graduation and for some school assemblies during fair weather.
• Ayres Hall incorporates administrative offices, a black box theatre, kitchens, refectory, and library, which houses music, archived newspapers and magazines for much of the 20th century, as well as 17,000 books, including a rare books conservation section.
• The Butterfly Garden was built and is maintained by the environmental science class.
• The Roger Kramer Observatory and Virgil Espino Telescope is used for astronomy classes.
• The Orchard has apple and plum trees.
• Houses and Dormitories house boarding students and some residential faculty, while the headmaster, chaplain, school physician and other resident faculty live in detached houses.
• Walker Innovation Center is TMI's newest addition to campus. On October 15, 2020 the building opened. The Walker Innovation Center is funded through a Major Gifts Campaign led by Stephen E. Walker, a longtime TMI Board of Governors member, parent of TMI alumni, and TMI grandparent and Mr. Walker and his wife, Debra.

There are currently around 400 students. Students come mostly from South Texas and Mexico, as well as other areas of the United States, including Michigan and Tennessee, and from foreign countries, including Afghanistan, Australia, China, Colombia, Hong Kong, Nigeria, Russia, South Korea, Thailand and Vietnam.

TMI shoulder patch for the digital ACU pattern

Approximately one third of TMI students are members of the Corps of Cadets. The TMI Corps of Cadets is under the command of MAJ Joseph Claburn (USA, Ret.), who has been the Commandant of Cadets since the beginning of the 2019-2020 school year. MAJ Claburn served as both the Assistant Commandant and Deputy Commandant between 2012 and 2018. Cadre members CW3 Casey Reed (USA, Ret.) serves as the JROTC Army Instructor, and SFC Minnette Sandoval Cornish (USAR) serves as the Assistant Commandant in charge of Middle School Cadets. The high school leadership program is affiliated with the United States Army's Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps. The Panther Battalion has also been named as an Honor Unit with Distinction, the highest possible unit award for a school JROTC program, for over a decade.[13] Due to its high ranking, TMI cadets can apply for places at United States Service academies without the congressional recommendation usually required.

The battalion is organized into three companies: Alpha, Bravo, and Charlie. Due to expansion in the 2014-2015 school year a fourth company, Delta, was briefly added, but as the amount of participants in the program fell, and the number of cadets not being enough to justify the existence of a four companies, it was removed before the start of the 2015-2016 school year. Companies are completely organized by the students, with each company having a senior company commander and a junior first sergeant. The companies are divided into two platoons, with three or four squads in each platoon. The Corps is run by a staff consisting entirely of junior and senior Cadets. It sponsors a bagpipe band, a color guard, an honor guard, an orienteering team, a physical fitness & Raider Team, a sabre guard, a drill team and a rifle team.

• Frederick Ahl – Latin and prize-winning translator of Vergil, now Stephen H. Weiss Presidential Fellow at Cornell University
• Page Morris – Mathematics
• Josef R. Sheetz – Interim Headmaster in 1954

• 1893 – West Texas Military Academy (WTMA)
• 1926 – Texas Military Institute (WTMA merged with the upper school of San Antonio Academy and the school was renamed Texas Military Institute)
• 2004 – TMI – The Episcopal School of Texas
• 2017 – TMI Episcopal (adopted in November 2017)

• Marine Military Academy
• Peacock Military Academy

• TMI website
• TMI on Twitter
• TMI on Flickr
• TMI Tube website where Residential Life students discuss their experience
• TMI on YouTube
• TMI on Vimeo