Dick Jardine graduated from Derryfield in 1971 on a scholarship that the school offered at the time for students who were going to go into the military service after high school. Jardine was one of seven children in his family and knew if he went into the Army he could be the first one in his family to receive a college education. He also knew this was the only way for him to accomplish his dream of being a math teacher. After Derryfield, Jardine was accepted into the United States Military Academy, also known as West Point. After being a cadet for four years there, he went on to serve in the Army for five years. Jardine’s first assignment was as a Platoon Leader at Fort Gordon in Georgia. Following that assignment he went to Germany as a Communication and Personal Officer where he commanded a company and was promoted to Captain. His Captain status qualified him to go back to school as well as to teach at West Point. Jardine was sent to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) for his masters in mathematics. After graduating from RPI, he went back and taught math at West Point for a few years. He then went to Alaska and became an Executive Officer which authorized him as a Major. During his time in Alaska, Jardine learned about a Trade Program in which America and Britain exchanged personnel. He signed up and went to live in North Yorkshire, where he served for the British Royal Signals Regiment. Once he returned from across the pond, Jardine went back to RPI to earn his PhD in Mathematics and taught again at West Point. He retired from the Army in 1999 and moved back to New Hampshire to become a professor in the mathematics department at Keene State University. Jardine was the department chair for 16 years and introduced online teaching programs for math classes at Keene State.
Outside of his career journey, Jardine has a great love for running. He coached the Cadet marathon team for many years and he himself has completed over 40 marathons, including qualifying for and running the Boston Marathon eight times and running the Mount Washington Road Race a dozen times. He ran three half-marathons over the 2020-2021 year and is training for a fall marathon.
“Derryfield helped build my self confidence and made me realize that I could do more than I ever thought I could do.” – Dick Jardine ‘71