Charles H. Orme Jr., 88; headmaster pushed independent education
Charles Henry Orme Jr., 88, a leader of independent education and longtime headmaster of Arizona’s nationally known Orme School, died May 4 at a Phoenix care facility. He had suffered from Alzheimer’s disease, said Stuart Rosebrook, an assistant headmaster at the school.
The educational enterprise grew out of a one-room school that Orme’s parents opened in 1929 on their ranch outside the central Arizona town of Mayer to educate their three children and those of ranch employees. As headmaster from 1945 to 1987, Orme built it from a small elementary school into a well-regarded private secondary school.
After an article on the school appeared in Arizona Highways magazine in 1952, the school began drawing the children of celebrities, including Charles Lindbergh, Jimmy Stewart, Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan.
Born in 1918 in Phoenix, Orme was the oldest son of former state Sen. Charles H. Orme Sr. He graduated from Stanford University, where he played on the football team nicknamed the “Wow Boys” that upset the University of Nebraska in the 1941 Rose Bowl.
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