The Thomas & Jeanne P. Bulleit Scholarship

Jeanne Bulleit was born Jeanne Parsley in Washington, DC in 1926. She grew up in the city, and graduated from what was then Salisbury State Teacher’s College in 1949. Returning to the DC area, she became a first grade teacher at Somerset Elementary School in Chevy Chase, MD. Due to the DC suburban location, she had the opportunity to teach the children of many prominent Washingtonians, among them the son of newscaster David Brinkley, Alan, who grew up to be an esteemed American political historian and Columbia University Provost. She met Tom Bulleit on a blind date in 1951, and they were married in 1952. Jeanne taught at Somerset from 1950 through the 1956 school year, suspending her vocation to raise her two sons, but returned to the profession as a preschool teacher when Tom Jr. and Jim were teenagers in the 1970s, and continued until retirement in the late ‘80s.

Both Jeanne and Tom also had a strong commitment to public service. In addition to teaching, Jeanne was a founder and mainstay of the Suburban Women’s Club of Montgomery County well into the 21st Century, and was for many years the coordinator of the club’s support of the second-hand Thrift Shop that operated in downtown Bethesda, MD. Tom was a veteran of both World War II and Korea, retired from the US Army Reserve with the rank of Major, and served more than 30 years as an employee of the U. S. Senate Disbursing Office.

The importance of both education and public service were passed on to their two sons. Jim graduated from Duke University with an M.A.T. and taught English in the Virginia Beach Public Schools for 30 years. He still coaches writing at Tidewater Community College, and is a mentor and impresario for local singer-songwriters. Elder brother Tom Jr. went to Yale and was a preschool teacher and social worker before attending the Michigan law school. He still practices health care law, but made the time to serve on the board of DC’s Children’s Law Center for almost 15 years, and his a cappella singing group, the Augmented 8, has raised over $300,000 in support of DC charities aiding persons experiencing homelessness through its annual Sing out for Shelter concert.

Jeanne, Tom and their two boys hope that the spirit of public service and devotion to education will carry on through the recipients of the Thomas and Jeanne P. Bulleit scholarship.