Welcome to the tower update so today a quick story of origin so where did wizard Academy come from that question gets asked a lot and the answer is kind of a journey in 1994 Roy H Williams the founder of the school began writing a blog post essentially in A newsletter called the Monday morning memo it took on many forms throughout the years it was faxed it was mailed it was now emailed and essentially became a blog post for all practical purposes in 1998 Ray Bard of Bard publishing reached out to Roy and they collaborated and Pulled together hundreds of those posts and that eventually became the first Wizard of ads book that then became The Wizard of ads trilogy and they became New York Times bestsellers because of that success Roy started spending a lot of time on the road and if you know Anything about Roy you know that that’s one thing he absolutely hates to do he would much rather be at home all the time and so it was kind of just draining him and so one point penny looked at him and said you know what Roy you need to Make them come to you instead of you traveling to go to them and on the back of that they started holding their first classes in a conference room in their small office building in Buda Texas and about two thousand four penny decided we need to have a property where we can Actually build something and she found the property that we are still on today and they managed to purchase all the acreage that the Academy and the for-profit buildings are are and a few Lots along the hill as well at that point Marley Porter shows up in the Story now Marley working with Roy and Penny designed every single building on this campus so when you see all the intricate interesting architecture in the buildings that’s often the hand of Marley or the hand of Marley and Penny and the whole campus was built by Daniel and patty Denney and a handful of Helpers so as things progressed if you’ll remember we built the chapel first and then they sort of worked out of what was essentially a little shed office on the property and then they knocked down a barn and rebuilt Tuscon Hall in its place and they started holding classes over there Roy’s only Job during this time was to come up with the money to actually build things as Roy said well you know we’ve never been in debt we’ve never borrowed money and we don’t know anybody we exist entirely off of tuitions and donations and and that’s because we’ve only built as money Came in and so the rule was you know what if the money’s coming in work on the Tattler if there’s no money today go go the rockwool and that’s how the campus just sort of came together one piece at a time now people often ask Roy Or ask us what does it feel like to have this grand vision come together and we find that a little amusing because honestly almost everything on this property was only the shadow of an idea and came into existence in steps and directions and choices along the way so Something we built and then some would say you know we need and then a next thing would happen and then someone say we know what we needed and then that next thing would grow and that’s the kind of thing that you can only do if every decision you make is according to A consistent culture and a consistent idea of things that matter right so if you’re always just kind of trapped into whatever’s cool right now then you end up with all these hodgepodge steps but if the culture and the values are strong and very clearly defined then anytime it Comes to make a decision about the next thing it will almost always look like it was part of the grand plan because it’s such a natural extension of the code from the values of the commune of the company we’re now reaching the time when we’re moving into bringing on New board of directors members and new leadership and it’s it’s really the second generation of wizard Academy is starting to step in and take the first steps to growing into the future and Roy’s been asked a lot about that as well and the most recent thing I heard Him say was it reminds me of a quote from Garrison Keillor one day a date that God Only Knows I will perish from the earth and no longer be present for roll call my mail will be returned my library card cancelled some other family will occupy This house this very porch and not be aware that I ever existed and if you told them they wouldn’t particularly care oh well what can you do I hope they appreciate the work I did on the line until tomorrow mayor crazy stay this side of legal and may you retired Before we have time to miss you cheers Video Information
This video, titled ‘Tower Update #22 – Wizard Academy Origin Story’, was uploaded by The Wizard Academy on 2018-04-16 17:20:07. It has garnered 3214 views and 78 likes. The duration of the video is 00:05:16 or 316 seconds.
How did Wizard Academy spring out of ground in the South Texas hill country? Was it all at once? Was there a grand vision? How did it happen, and whose mind is behind it?
All these questions are asked at almost every class held on our campus. If you’ve always wanted to know how got started, I’ve taken the time to tell the story.
I wasn’t here at the beginning, but I got here as fast as could.
-Daniel Whittington
