The Petty’s departure is ripe in the Land of the Sleeping Bear

By Norm Wheeler
Sun editor
It’s the end of an era at The Leelanau School in Glen Arbor as Duane and Fiffy Petty are heading to Wichita, Kansas. Since 1990 both Pettys have been fixtures at the private high school from which all three of their children, Jason, Michael, and Erin, graduated.
In more than 16 years at Leelanau, Duane Petty wore numerous administrative hats: he has been the coach of a successful tennis program for all of those years, as well as serving as Athletic Director and Director of Summer Programs for 12 years, Dean of Students for 7 years, Director of Building & Grounds for five years, and Director of Admissions for five years. Duane also coached Junior Varsity basketball a couple of years, and has worked for five school presidents during his long tenure.

As a gifted and successful coach, Petty fondly recounts the statistics and the players that highlighted his career here. Duane was on Bill Hollenbeck’s football coaching staff at Glen Lake along with Mike Hill in 1994 when the Lakers won the state championship. “We had guys like Jamie Mazurek, Todd Ciolek, Mike Depuy, Jason Butz, Rob Semple, and they all played their roles perfectly,” Petty recalls. “Our German exchange student (Tom Brendelberger) kicked 51 of 53 extra points.” Coach Petty worked with the defensive backs and the offensive receivers on that team. “Mike Hill and Bill Hollenbeck really energized that team,” he adds. “Those guys really love football!”
At Leelanau, Petty’s tennis teams accumulated an unofficial dual match record of 89-76. “People race toward 100 wins in a coaching career,” he explains. “We had tremendous success in the 90’s, and in recent years we’ve had developmental teams.” From 1991 to 1995, Petty’s players went to the State Finals six times, once in number one singles (Derek Paquette) and five times as a team. “We won the Regionals here from ’91-‘94, and came in second in ‘95. Our best finish at State’s was eleventh out of 17 teams.”
In Duane Petty’s early years at Leelanau when the enrollment was around 100 students the school fielded teams in 13 competitive sports in the Cherryland Conference. “We had some great basketball teams in the ‘90’s,” Duane remembers, “and one year the Trent Duncan, Brian Monroe, Jason Nargis team went 22-2.” One of the highlights of those years was the ’96 District Soccer title. “Over the years the biggest successes were teams with a predominance of locals,” Petty muses. “On that soccer team 8 of the 11 starters were students from this area, like Nargis, Dan Herd, Jordan Bates, Adam Navarro, Michael Petty and Jacob Wheeler. In tennis that was also true, but there we also had a good compliment of outsiders.”
One of the characters Duane Petty particularly remembers is Brian Monroe. “He spent five years at the school because we had an eighth grade then, and he accumulated 27 or 28 varsity letters. Brian played on every boy’s team we offered, usually two or three teams per season. He was an incredible athlete, and that is one of the most amazing accomplishments I’ve every seen.”
As a footnote it should also be noted that Duane was the chairman of the Glen Arbor Township Park Commission from 1995 to the present. In that role he has been instrumental in the expansion of the awesome playground and the hugely popular tennis courts in the middle of town. Thanks, Duane!
As Director of Alumni Relations at Leelanau, Fiffy Petty was instrumental in the tremendous growth of a languishing program. “At my first reunion in 1991 there were only two people,” she laughs. “At the school’s seventy-fifth anniversary in 2005 there were 150!” Fiffy fondly remembers working with Willis Hawkins from the first graduating class of 1932. Willis was an executive at Lockheed for 65 years. “He designed the C-130 transport plane and worked on either the F-14 or F-16.” When Willis passed on in 2004, Fiffy was asked to speak at his memorial service. “I spoke to his Lockheed colleagues at Van Nuys Airport. That was my greatest honor.”
Other Leelanau School notables whom Fiffy counts as friends include the late Lane Smith, class of 1955, the Hollywood actor who played Perry White in “Lois & Clark” and Nixon in “The Final Days,” and who appeared in “My Cousin Vinny” and “The Mighty Ducks.” There’s also Dr. Martha Seeger, class of 1950, the first woman to be appointed to the Federal Reserve Board, for a 14-year term, by Ronald Reagan. And Walter Netsch, class of 1938, is the architect who designed the famous chapel at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.
Fiffy particularly enjoyed working with Arthur Huey during her tenure at Leelanau, and she communicated with Cora Beals, who co-founded the school with her husband Skipper Beals. “The alums are family to me,” she says. “More than alumni, they have become friends, and that’s what happens with 15 years of calls and gatherings across the country.” Fiffy will continue to volunteer for the Leelanau Alumni Organization, attend gatherings, and help edit the newsletter “Manitou Passages.”
Duane Petty has already headed out to Wichita to become the Dean of Students and to do some coaching at the Wichita Collegiate School. “It is a private day school for pre-kindergarten thru twelfth grade,” Fiffy explains. “Arguably the top private day school in Kansas, Wichita Collegiate has top-notch academics, with 20 Advanced Placement classes, and athletics second to none. There are countless state championship trophies in their trophy case.” The school serves 1000 students, 260 in the high school, on a 42-acre campus.
“This is a great opportunity for Duane,” says Fiffy, who will stay on at Cherry Republic into the fall before joining him in Wichita. “We may just keep our house here in Glen Arbor so we can spend the summers here. Now, suddenly, Duane will have his summers off!” Godspeed and good luck, Duane and Fiffy Petty, and thanks for everything.