Giving Back: Joe Bain '41
Bain is forging bonds, link by link.
“Pause you who read this, and think for a moment of the long chain … that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day.” —Charles Dickens, Great Expectations
Since his arrival on campus before the start of World War II, Sherwood “Joe” Bain, class of 1941, has been assembling a chain of connections between himself and the extended Academy community, which includes three generations of the Bain family and a long line of younger alumni. Through the establishment of the Ninoy Scholarship, which covers part of the cost of an Exeter education for Asian students, Bain has forged strong relationships with students of Thai, Filipino and Hmong descent, among others. To understand how the scholarship came into being and to fully appreciate Bain’s lasting connections with its recipients, including Tchao Thao ’01, it is necessary to go link by link, beginning in 1939.
After attending high school in Maine, Bain came to Exeter that year for a two-year postgraduate term. He says, “It was an eye-opener! The mixture of students, the Harkness table, the faculty and facilities — it gave me a whole picture.” After leaving Exeter, Bain was stationed in the Philippines with the Army during World War II, and he came to have a strong appreciation for the Filipino culture and people. He graduated from Harvard and Harvard Business School after returning to the States, and later he and his wife, Carol, served as a host family for Filipino students at Harvard.
Bain also paid particular attention to events in the Philippines. “I followed the political situation, and the leader, really a dictator, was Ferdinand Marcos — a scoundrel!” Bain says. Marcos, who served as president of the Philippines for more than two decades, established an authoritarian regime criticized for corruption and jailing opposition leaders. He was deposed in 1986.