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About Jemicy
The History of Jemicy School
 In 1972, Jemicy founders Joyce Bilgrave and David Malin created a camp – Camp Bombadil – to serve the needs of children experiencing difficulty in the traditional classroom due to dyslexia and other language-based learning differences. The name “Bombadil,” which comes from a J. R. Tolkien character who likes to sing nonsense words, expressed the playful and creative nature of its founders. Camp Bombadil was fun. Although primarily established to provide daily tutoring in reading, using the Orton-Gillingham approach, students rode horseback and had wood shop, archery, tennis and swimming. The students loved camp and, after eight intensive weeks of language and math tutoring, they were known to “hit the ground running” at the start of school. The camp, held at Joyce and Bob Bilgrave’s farm in Phoenix Maryland, was a great success until it closed due to the sale of the property in 1982.
Parents of campers, experiencing their children’s success, encouraged its founders to open a school. So Joyce Bilgrave and David Malin teamed with educator Margaret Rawson and psychologist Roger Saunders, both internationally recognized pioneers in the field of dyslexia, to pool their expertise. Camp parent Taylor White spearheaded a fledgling Board of Trustees and leased the J. Jefferson Miller estate. This mansion was called “Jemicy” – a name crafted from the first syllable of each of his children’s names: Jefferson, Mickey, and Cynthia.
On September 12, 1973, The School at Jemicy Farm opened with 51 students and 16 faculty members. Teachers held classes throughout the house and Joe Chidester, a beloved science teacher, even taught some of his classes in a chicken coop. The school had horses and other animals on campus, and the faculty utilized all 60 acres as classroom space on this sprawling rural estate.
Two years later, the school moved to its current Lower and Middle School Campus in Owings Mills. Jemicy has matured, and today offers well-equipped classrooms and advanced technology. Now, as in 1973, Jemicy is up-to-date on the most recent research in the field of language-based learning. Yet the relaxed, camp-like feeling remains. On the Lower and Middle School Campus, the Head of School and Admission offices are in a converted barn; the students still build forts in the woods. Faculty is allowed to bring a dog to campus if the dog passes the “therapy dog certification” program.
Today, Jemicy enrolls 280 students on two campuses and serves grades 1 – 12, having merged with Valley Academy in 2003. The annual operating budget is over $8 million; the endowment exceeds $11 million. The school provides training programs to public, independent and parochial school teachers, and tutoring services to children and adults through the Jemicy Professional Outreach Program. Jemicy willingly shared its expertise with founders of two area schools, established to serve a similar learning population.
Jemicy is proud of its alumni and history. Graduates are successful students, professionals, parents and community leaders. Alumni have found careers in law, medicine, art, engineering, film, design, real estate, enology (winemaking), education, landscaping and science. They return to visit their teachers, share memories, and sometimes to drop off their dyslexic offspring.
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