BETHEL – Deborah F. Hammond became Gould Academy’s first woman to serve as president of the Board of Trustees May 3.

A resident of Cumberland Foreside and a 1961 graduate of Gould Academy, Hammond has served since 1984 on the Board of Trustees at Gould, a 166-year-old, private boarding school providing a traditional and innovative college preparatory education to about 220 students in grades nine to 12.

A 1965 graduate of Grove City College in Pennsylvania, Hammond received a master’s in music education from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 1966.

She taught in the choral and general music programs at junior high schools in Portland and South Portland for five years before becoming the public relations director and auction producer for WCBB-TV in Lewiston. Hammond then served as director of marketing and development at the Portland Symphony Orchestra, a position from which she recently retired after 21 years.

Hammond served on Gould Academy’s Alumni Board of Directors, including a two-year term as its president from 1981-1983, joined the Board of Trustees the following year, and became a charter trustee in 1991. A four-year term as secretary of the Board of Trustees was followed by six years as vice president, from 1997-2003. She has chaired the Board’s Education Committee and, in 2000, co-chaired the Head of School Search Committee.

In 1994, Hammond received Gould Academy’s Alumna of the Year Award, presented annually to the alumna or alumnus who represents the high ideals established by the Alumni Board of Directors, and in 2002 her dedication and leadership were again recognized with the presentation of the Michael S. Stowell Volunteer Award, an honor given only periodically to a member of the Gould family who demonstrates extraordinary volunteer service over a long period of time.

Hammond succeeds Alan B. Ordway, Gould Academy class of 1958, a trustee since 1974 and president of the Board of Trustees since 1979. Ordway is a 1962 graduate of Yale University and was a U.S. Naval Officer from 1962-1965. With his wife, Michelle, and children, Laura and Spencer, both graduates of Gould Academy, he has owned and operated Winona Camps in Bridgton for more than 35 years.