Pictured above are Antioch School riders in 2012, from left: Jorie Sieck, Sam Linden (obscured), Zack Brintlinger-Conn, Evelyn Potter, Samantha Bold and Zenya Hoff-Miyazaki. (News archive photo by Matt Minde)
Antioch School to honor Peggy Erskine at Spring Community Celebration
- Published: April 11, 2025
It’s around this time of year that The Antioch School is typically getting ready to present its annual gala and silent auction — an event that helps seed its scholarship fund.
This year, though, the school is trading the gala for an outdoor spring celebration on the 5.3 acres of land it purchased — with overwhelming aid from more than 70 donors — to permanently house its Forest Kindergarten program.
The Spring Community Celebration will be held Sunday, April 13, 2–4 p.m. on Antioch School grounds.
“We want to have a gathering that allows the school and the community to interact with each other,” the school’s development coordinator, Chris Westhoff, told the News this week. “We felt that, because of the enormous generosity of the Forest Kindergarten campaign in the fall, our instinct was to celebrate this land, but not have this year’s event be a place where we are asking for money.”
As the News reported in October last year, all of The Antioch School’s students — but particularly its Forest Kindergarten program, launched by teacher Lindie Keaton in 2015 — have used the land at the corner of Corry and Allen streets for outdoor education over the years. The school used the land with permission from Antioch College, which owned the 5.3 acres and listed the land for sale twice last year — first in July, and then in September.
An unknown buyer made an offer of $600,000 to purchase the land, which triggered a “right of first refusal” clause embedded in the deed for the land, allowing The Antioch School 30 days to match the offer and buy the land themselves.
And that’s what happened: Within three weeks, donors made it possible for The Antioch School to buy the 5.3 acres, securing its use for Forest Kindergarten and other educational programs in perpetuity.
School Manager Nathan Summers said it was the foresight of the late Peggy Erskine — in whose honor the upcoming spring celebration is held — that made the land purchase possible, in more than one way.
Peggy Erskine served as Antioch School manager from 1982–1994.
Erskine, who served as school manager from 1982–1994, helped secure the purchase of The Antioch School’s building and its initial 3.7 acres of land in 1985, when the school was still navigating its independence from Antioch College. She also worked to insert the “right of first refusal” clause into the deed of the land the school bought last year.
“It’s almost like she had this foresight that, at some point, there might be an opportunity to purchase it,” Summers said. “Honestly, had that agreement not been in place, we would not have been able to secure it.”
Erskine was also the first to donate toward the school’s purchase of the land last year — and it was her donation that sparked the successful fundraising campaign.
“As we talked about what would happen this past fall, [Erskine] always sensed that there was some unfinished business [with the 5.3 acres], and I think she felt very pleased to be in a position where she could help us to the degree that she did,” Westhoff said. “And her gift is the thing that gave us the inspiration to feel like this might be possible.”
Erskine died Oct. 27, 2024 — a few weeks shy of her 87th birthday, and just before The Antioch School officially purchased the land she had made sure would stay within the reach of current and future students and staff.
“It’s bittersweet, because Peggy didn’t get to see it come to fruition, but she absolutely made it happen,” Summers said. “She set the stage 40 years ago, and then she was there to help close the curtain.”
Summers added that Erskine, in many ways, also set the stage for what the role of school manager looks like. It’s a job with a lot of nuance, he said: part administrator, part educator, part cheerleader and part counselor, among other things. He cited Erskine’s training as a nurse, which she brought with her into her role as school manager — and which he and Westhoff have surmised was the genesis of the school’s well-kept medical cabinet.
“And I am still the school nurse now,” Summers said — and, as if to punctuate that truth, a young student came in moments later to ask him for a Band-Aid.
“It’s not just physical injuries that you attend to — sometimes emotional, too — and it’s an interesting blend of responsibilities that [Erskine] helped create,” Summers said. “She had a kind of matter-of-factness about how she approached things — this ‘anything is possible’ attitude that I really admire.”
The Antioch School will honor Erskine, as well as the 70-plus other donors who made the purchase of its new land possible, during the upcoming celebration event. The school will erect a tent down the hill from the school building on the new land, which will be filled with food both catered by Current Cuisine and provided, potluck-style, by staff and families.
Entertainment will be provided by the school’s Older Group strings ensemble, which has been working under the tutelage of Simone Demarzi and Marna Street of the YS Youth Orchestra Association this year. Also on the bill will be “The Big Family Business,” a revival of former Dayton-based dance and music company Rhythm in Shoes that debuted at the Foundry last year and which kicked off The Antioch School’s residency activities.
“It’ll be a real fun time, and a nice and meaningful bookend to put on our activities for the school year,” Westhoff said.
With the celebration taking the place of the annual scholarship gala, Westhoff added that The Antioch School is continuing to build its scholarship fund by participating in a state tax credit program through the Ohio Association of Independent Schools Scholarship Granting Organization. The program, which began in 2021, assists low-income families in attending the independent schools of their choice, funded by donors who receive tax credits for their donations.
“We’re doing well in terms of seeding next year’s scholarship opportunities through that program,” Westhoff said. “It was kind of a way where we could offset that annual ask.”
With that in mind, Summers said that — though the school is always open to accepting donations — there will be no such request at the upcoming spring celebration.
“And it’s open to all,” he said. “We’d love for everybody to come out.”
The Antioch School will hold its Spring Community Celebration Sunday, April 13, 2–4 p.m., with a special presentation at 2:30 p.m. The event was made possible with the support of the YS Community Foundation, Ohio Arts Council, Mad River Theater Works and 91.3 WYSO.
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