VES to welcome new headmaster

Virginia Episcopal School will have a new headmaster next year.

G. Thomas Battle Jr., a former VES teacher and 1983 graduate of the school, will start July 1 as the school’s 12th headmaster. The current headmaster, Phil Hadley, will retire at that time.

Battle was recommended by a nine-member search committee, and VES board chairman James Barber and the board endorsed the recommendation, the school said in a news release.

Battle, a Charleston, W.Va., native, earned a bachelor’s in economics from the University of Virginia in 1987 and a MBA from William and Mary’s Mason School of Business in 1995. He is an executive with Morgan Stanley Smith Barney in Winston-Salem.

While on the faculty at VES from 1987 to 1993, Battle taught history, coached football and lacrosse and served as an adviser and dorm master.

Lynchburg-based VES is a coeducational college preparatory and boarding school.