By: Morgan Topol

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The Governor’s School of North Carolina, which is a publicly funded residential summer program for gifted high school students, is the oldest program of its kind in the United States. The first summer session of Governor’s School took place all the way back in 1963, and it was created with the goal of advancing the education of North Carolina's brightest students.

Since its conception, Governor’s School has transformed high school students into future leaders in the various disciplines offered by the program, including but not limited to science, English, mathematics, the arts, and social sciences. But it’s so much more than just an academic experience: Governor’s School gives high school students the rare opportunity to meet other high schoolers all across the state of North Carolina, serving as the catalyst for friendships that last a lifetime.

With Governor’s School now existing for over six decades, we’re beginning to see an exciting and heartwarming phenomenon emerge: multi-generational alumni. High school students who were accepted into Governor’s School and attended a couple decades ago are now having children of their own, and are convincing those children to apply to Governor’s School. They do this with the hope that their children will have the opportunity to have the same life-changing experience they did.

Andrew and Owen Beal are one such pairing: Andrew went to Governor’s School East in 1999, which at the time was held at St. Andrews Presbyterian College. Owen, Andrew’s son, attended Governor’s School West last year, in 2024, at Greensboro College. While Andrew and Owen had differing experiences in many ways, one overarching sentiment was shared between them: Governor’s School is an experience like no other, and one that they are both incredibly grateful for.

One significant way Andrew and Owen’s experience differed was their chosen discipline of study. At Governor’s School, accepted students pursue an “Area 1” of their choice: choral music, dance, English, French, instrumental music, mathematics, natural science, social science, Spanish, theatre, or visual arts. Andrew selected English, while Owen, who is a violinist, selected instrumental music.

Andrew recounted how, back when he attended Governor’s School over 25 years ago, he read a lot of literature by various Southern authors that he otherwise would not have read. He wrote a lot, and had great conversations with his fellow English students. He also has a recollection of the English Area 1 creating a booklet at the end of the summer, compiling the students’ writings.

“We had occasional times where we would have the other instructors from English,” Andrew said. “There were three English classes: Southern literature, women's literature, and poetry. So we would have the other teachers. I guess we would all meet together once in a while. I remember that, all three together.”

Even after all this time, he still remembers some of the Governor’s School faculty members who taught him. His primary Area 1 instructor was Carolyn Shobe, who he recalls being a great teacher. He also was taught poetry by Chuck Sullivan, who is described by many as "the embodiment of Governor's School," and has been a dedicated instructor at Governor’s School for 45 consecutive summers.

“He was so funny,” Andrew said. “He was quite a character, and just really, really passionate about poetry.”

One of Owen’s biggest takeaways from being part of the instrumental music Area 1 last summer was that Governor’s School exposes instrumental music students to pieces that they would almost never see in other orchestra settings, due to their contemporary and forward-thinking nature.

Rather than standard sheet music with conventional notes and scoring, Owen remembers pieces within his concert repertoire telling him to use unconventional techniques on his violin to create things like frog sounds, bird calls, and wind.

“It’s really just some of the most interesting music you play there that you don't play anywhere else,” Owen said. “No one programs that stuff. The first day you get it, you're like, ‘what the heck, that piece didn't have actual notes.’ It just said, ‘go about this high,’ and it's crazy, but it grows on you. It's so unique.”

Apart from standard rehearsal with all of the instrumental music students, there was also rehearsal with smaller chamber groups. In Owen’s case, during this time, the strings were split into two string orchestras. One of the pieces he played, and loved, was based on Langston Hughes’s poem “Harlem,” and he got to be concertmaster for that piece.

When it comes to instrumental music, this is yet another way that Governor’s School is different from other ensembles – no one is “first chair” the entire summer. In Owen’s case, he remembers moving around from second chair, to the back of the first violins, to the back of the second violins, to the middle of the second violins. The rotation is intentional.

“There's this stigma of second violin just being ‘less than’ and the first violin being the one that you really want, but they get rid of that completely at Governor's School,” Owen said. “I really think we should be moving around a lot more like that, because it's a really wonderful way of showing that it's not about who's the concertmaster. We're all in this together.”

In addition to concert repertoire, instrumental music students also take other classes, such as a musical improvisation class, which also has a contemporary basis. Owen’s improvisation class was led by Nicole Parks, who is a long-time member of the violin faculty and someone that Owen views as an incredible leader.

“She likes to do this every year,” Owen said. “She took us outside and said, ‘Just play what you hear, just play the nature.’ So it was kind of weird, but also it was really nice out and really pretty, and there's a lot of nice open areas. They have the quad, and they have a place where they would do a lot of soccer games and stuff. That day was just a dream.”

Also in his musical improvisation class, Owen and his classmates created graphic scores, which are visual representations of music that use shapes, lines, colors, and other visual elements instead of traditional musical notation. For this assignment, he partnered up with his friend and fellow violinist, Azaria, and they wrote a piece together. After everyone was finished, he and his classmates played each others’ graphic scores.

“It was kind of hard for me, because it's less clear what the composer wants. I want to be right,” Owen said. “So I'm like, ‘Well, what do you want?’ But the point is, you're not telling me. So I have to make my own decision. But we did do that, and it was pretty cool.”

In addition to classes within their Area 1 discipline, all Governor’s School students have to take two interdisciplinary classes throughout the summer: Area 2, which is an ‘Applied Philosophy’ course that asks students to apply critical, creative, and philosophical thinking to explore current issues and events, and Area 3, which is a ‘Self and Society’ course, where students learn from the experiences and perspectives of others, as well as explore their own.

Although Andrew doesn’t remember many specifics about his Area 2 experience, he does remember it being a fascinating class, and down the line realized that the discussions had in that class were at least at the undergraduate level, and even occasionally graduate-level content.

“My vague impression was that it was really thoughtful, really eye-opening,” Andrew said. “Lots of philosophical concepts. I remember talking about ontology and epistemology. I can't remember the instructor’s name, but he was really, really good.”

In Area 2, Owen remembers one particularly poignant experience. His instructor showed his class a painting, and told them it was painted by Van Gogh. The painting was of a nighttime scene, and had beautiful European architecture. The instructor asked Owen and his classmates if they liked it.

“We were like, ‘Yeah, this looks cool.’ ” Owen recalled. “Then he was like, ‘Well, that was made by AI.’ ”

Owen was shocked.

“It was something that I’ll definitely remember,” he said. “It was interesting because the question is, ‘Do you still like it?’ I think the AI still did a good job. But it's like, how does the context change what you think about the art? Should that be affected, or not? Is that the most important thing? Or do you just take it out of context and let it speak for itself?”

From the first day of Owen’s Area 3 class, he found it incredibly eye-opening. His instructor, Savannah, put him and his classmates in small, randomized groups – but blindfolded them all before they could see each other for the first time.

“She got us in groups of four,” Owen said. “It was so interesting to talk to these people, all of which, of course, I know better now, but I didn't even know what they looked like. And it was very interesting just thinking about your own biases that you have. I got a really good table, I think, and that was a really cool thing to do.”

Owen recalls his Area 3 class discussing topics that approached political philosophy, but that the conversations were had in a very respectful manner, which he enjoyed. He also remembers them doing an activity about equity based on the game Monopoly.

“The rules were all different,” Owen said. “For example, ‘player one gets double the money when you go on this space, but player two gets half the money.’ That was interesting about how, like, you can't really blame people if the rules that they're playing by are different.”

Outside of the classroom, Governor’s School is just as much of a unique experience as it is in Areas 1, 2, and 3. There are multiple evening events, including talent shows, and Governor’s School alumni (including myself) have fond memories of getting into large groups and playing various card games in the dorm basements at night. There are also optional seminars throughout the summer session, ranging on everything from impostor syndrome, to John Cage, to memes.

Speaking of memes, those have become integral to the Governor’s School experience as technology has advanced over the years. Each summer, new students become part of the Governor’s School fabric, and with those new students, come new memes (and new meme pages). Owen’s 2024 session was no exception.

“It was this anonymous person [making the memes],” Owen said. “No one knew who it was, but they were hilarious memes. They're just so funny. But it's a very 21st century thing that's, you know, very funny and very current. It's not just that [Governor’s School] was made in the 60s, and that's the whole thing.”

Owen continued, “Everyone will be texting the memes to each other, and the memes serve their purpose well. They spread really well, and that's just a funny little tidbit, a little slice of life there.”

After each summer session ends, the new alumni find ways to keep the powerful bonds they made at Governor’s School alive. In the case of Owen, who is from Raleigh, he has a groupchat with the people he met in Area 3, so that he can keep up with them.

“A lot of them are in the West, and a good number are in Raleigh, and one’s in Durham,” Owen said. “I wish I could see them more often, but it's really just great that you get to see all these people. I mean, we’re still talking on our groupchat. It's not daily or anything, but it's really amazing.”

While Andrew didn’t attend Governor’s School in the age of groupchats, he has kept in touch with someone he met at Governor’s School while attending 26 years ago: his friend Chris Plumblee, who was part of the English Area 1 with him and now lives down in Florida.

Now that Governor’s School has ended, Owen is preparing for the future. Currently, he plays violin in the Triangle Youth Philharmonic and the Leesville Road High School orchestra, and takes private lessons in his studio, where he primarily plays solo and chamber music. He aspires to obtain a bachelor’s degree in music (violin performance), and then afterwards, a master’s degree in orchestral conducting.

“I've been very lucky to conduct at my school some, and I've been able to conduct the choir at my church,” Owen said. “Those were really wonderful experiences. I just really want to get more time on the podium doing that.”

In addition to these aspirations, Owen also definitely wants to go back to Governor’s School to be a Fellow.

“It just seems like you have the best time, because you do some of the same stuff you did before, where you get to play in the orchestra and play the really cool music and you just get to feel it, to be there again,” Owen said. “So I'm definitely looking at applying, probably for a summer within my college years, to go back.”

As he moves through the world going forward, he wants to become the leader for others that Nicole Parks was for him.

“She’s leading us, literally, and then she's also leading in the sectionals, and the small ensembles, and the improv class, and the context class, and she's just such a great role model that I'm definitely going to try to emulate in some way,” Owen said. “She's so willing to try everything, and that's the whole point of Governor’s School, right? To just try it.”

For Andrew, there were so many reasons to try and convince Owen to apply to Governor’s School. One was that Governor’s School, which lasts four weeks at the present time, is a great way to prepare any high schooler for their future, as many high schoolers will eventually leave home for college and gain more independence.

“I definitely plugged it with Owen for a long time and encouraged him to go, because it's a great experience,” Andrew said. “I told him at some point that it's a college preparation program as well. For many people, like me, it’s the best preparation to go off to college that I ever did, and it was the longest I'd been away from home at one stint.”

“I think it's just a great North Carolina homegrown innovation and institution,” Andrew continued. “So, yeah, I definitely encouraged him. I had no idea what subject he'd be going in, back then, when he was younger, but I'm glad it was music, which is his passion.”

Owen is very grateful that his dad not only went to Governor’s School, but pushed so strongly for Owen to apply as well.

“I had heard people that I know in the high school amateur music community say it was a great opportunity,” Owen said. “But particularly because my dad did it – I mean, I think I would have gone, but it just really made me enthused to go.”

Owen is looking forward to furthering the tradition of attending Governor’s School within his family, and will indubitably try to convince his own future children to apply to Governor’s School as well.

“I'm glad my dad went, because obviously he learned a lot of important things and allowed me to also go,” Owen said. “I'm sure that any children I have will be strongly encouraged to also attend, and hopefully go to Greensboro College or Meredith [College]. But seriously, it's really important, I think, to pass it down. Definitely, I'm going to be advocating very strongly for it.”

Andrew believes that the longevity of Governor’s School, as well as the fact that other families of multi-generational alumni are beginning to take root, are both a testament to the immense value of the program.

“I was very proud, of course, very proud of my son for going to Governor’s School like his old man,” Andrew said. “I think it's a representation of the fact that it is so long-standing that there have been multiple generations – by now, three generations of some families. It's a great investment by the state, such that the alumni often stay in-state once they grow up.”

Andrew and Owen had the same piece of advice for any high schooler considering applying to Governor’s School: “Do it.”

If you’re still hesitant, take it from Owen: “You’re never going to regret it.”