Quick links to other pages on this site | Still can't find it? see Site Index Brad Nettles/StaffAn 1880 photograph shows students at Porter Military Academy. The school is holding their 50th reunion of the last class to graduate. Buy this photo

The third weekend of every April, alumni of Porter Military Academy gather at St. Luke's Chapel for a service to celebrate the heritage and history of their school.

This year that annual tradition will take on a deeper meaning as members of the class of 1964 - the last graduating class of the academy - will gather for their first reunion in 50 years.

"We had some good times," said Mike Ratcliffe, a 1964 graduate of the academy who has helped organize the reunion.

Despite the academy's name, Ratcliffe said it was military only in appearance but not in curriculum. The boys wore military-style uniforms and marched each morning to St. Luke's Chapel for service, but there were no military classes.

The academy has a complex history that dates to 1867 when the Rev. Anthony Toomer Porter, an Episcopal priest, formed the Holy Communion Church Institute as a school and orphanage for children orphaned during the Civil War. In 1880, the school located at an old military arsenal near the present day intersection of Ashley Avenue and Bee Street.

The school was eventually renamed Porter Military Academy and functioned as an all boys boarding school until 1954. It continued to operate as a private school for grades 1-12 until 1964 when the campus was sold to the Medical University of South Carolina.

That same year school officials decided to merge Porter Military Academy with the Gaud School for Boys, founded in 1908, and the Watt School, founded in 1931. The new school, called Porter-Gaud School, opened in the fall of 1964. The school moved a year later to its current location on Albemarle Road following a donation of 70 acres from Atlantic Coast Line Railroad.

Today all but three of the buildings on the academy's campus have been demolished. Only St. Luke's Chapel, Colcock Hall and the Waring Historical Library remain.

The history of the school was palpable to the students who went there. Ratcliffe recalled discovering old tunnels under the arsenal.

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Porter Military Academy celebrates 50th reunion of last graduating class