Wendell E. Dunn - Baltimore Teaching Career and Later Life

Baltimore Teaching Career and Later Life

Dunn served in the Baltimore City School System for 30 of the 43 years he was an educator. The head of numerous local and regional educational groups, he was a vice principal of Baltimore City College and principal of Patterson Senior High before assuming the post at Forest Park in 1935. In 1938, he was elected president of the Maryland State Teachers' Association.

On November 25, 1955, Dunn was elected president of the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools, the first principal of a public high school to receive this honor. He was named by educators from New York, Maryland, New Jersey, Delaware and the District of Columbia at the opening session of the organization's sixty-ninth annual convention.

Dunn died July 26, 1965, after a long illness, four days after the death of his wife. He had made a lasting impression on the lives of many of his students. One wrote, “Whatever the subject he touched upon, he seemed to go to its core. He spoke our language—with us, never down to us—raising us with his ease and flow of words to an understanding of the ethics and responsibilities that awaited us even as young adults. We are widely scattered today, but wherever we are, we hold the memory of a man who helped to give us direction, who earned the respect and esteem of his students, a mentor to thousands who stand a little straighter because of his guidance."

Dunn is interred in Green Mount Cemetery. He was the brother of civil engineer Everett Dunn.