Phoebe Barr ’19: After nearly forty years of serving as Head Chaplain at the Episcopal Academy, Reverend Jim Squire is retiring at the end of this school year and starting a new chapter in his life. Scholium recently got the exclusive about his plans for life after EA.
“At this point in time, I don’t know what they are,” Squire shared. “They’re still to be determined. But I know a couple of things. I know that I’ll be volunteering here. I’ll do a bit of traveling for the school next year, and my wife will be with me doing that. But I also know that this is the kind of job that has kept me away from my family a great deal. And so it’s going to be good for me to be able to manage my time so I can spend more time with my wife and children.”
Squire asserted that he is planning to spend retirement in some form of active role. “I know myself well enough,” he said, “that I’m not a paperback-novel-on-a-beach guy. I was just talking to someone who used two words, and these words would probably be guideposts for me. He said to me, ‘This job that I have is so challenging, but it’s so invigorating.’ So the next chapter, when it’s formalized in that kind of way, will have those two characteristics. I’ll be open to whatever it might be.”
Photo Courtesy of Jenna Cooley ’16
He also talked about how his experience at Episcopal has made him who he is today. “No question about it, my experience at Episcopal has shaped me,” he commented. “Just going through things and sorting things now, it’s hard for me to even get through it because there’s so many letters and thank-you notes. And you realize when you’re doing that process how much those experiences have really shaped who you are today.”
Squire reminisced about how his decades-long job at EA was the perfect fit for him. “I feel blessed, because not everyone is as lucky as I’ve been. Everyday I am so excited to get to school, to do what I do. And what I do, in terms of my own personal skill set, just sort of fits this institution. Not everybody would like doing what I do…you never know what’s going to walk through the door, and you never know what’s going to come up, and you have to juggle a bunch of balls at the same time, but I enjoy that. I thrive in that. I couldn’t be in front of a computer all day or that kind of thing, so it’s been a wonderful fit.”
EA’s mission statement has also been Squire’s motivation as Head Chaplain. He mentioned, “In terms of mind, body and spirit…I love to run, and so the body piece is there, and I’ve always loved learning and academia. And being a priest, the whole issue of spiritual involvement and how important that is is sort of essential to life. It’s very important to me. And those three ingredients are here.”
After being part of and witnessing the evolution of Episcopal Squire said with certainty, “it’s a wonderful community. You find that out as students and alums; once you leave it, you miss certain things about it, and I’m pleased that a lot of our alums miss the chapel experience. Because the student leadership does such a great job, and that’s neat for me. Interestingly, in terms of how I got here…one of the people who interviewed me was Bert Zug, because he was on the student vestry. So the world is small. All these things sort of come back into you in different ways.”
“So,” he concluded, “I don’t know what my retirement plan will be yet, but I know it has to be challenging, and I know it has to be invigorating. That’s the whole enchilada for me.”