Photo: Fred Tefft with Chico Eastridge ’05. Fred attended the class’s 20th reunion on campus in July 2025 and led a workshop making birdhouses.
Fred Tefft always put safety – and students – first. As Thetford Academy’s longtime shop teacher, Fred could be counted on to shout “EYE SAFETY!” multiple times each day. As one alum noted, “He wasn’t afraid to use the kill switch to the shop, either.” An exacting teacher with notoriously high standards, Fred’s teaching legacy, though, lies not in his gruffness – but in his attention, humor, and gentle guidance. His students felt safe with him.
Fred led the industrial arts program at TA for 27 years, joining the faculty in 1975. As English teacher Joe Deffner wrote in the Valley News upon his retirement in 2002, Fred started from nothing “by salvaging old tool cabinets from neighboring schools, begging equipment from local businesses and donating whole summers of his time painting the shop and hanging bold-lettered signs that read ‘Safety First.'”
It was in this space that a generation of students learned the satisfaction that comes from making something with your hands. As Zach Rowles ’92 put it, “Fred had kids make real products. They weren’t dumbed down. They were sturdy stools to sit on and metal weathervanes that stood the test of time.” “Fred must have had a belief that kids were inherently capable of making these items,” he continued, “And the fact that he had these high standards and this belief helped all of us believe in ourselves.”
Young people of all stripes came through Fred’s shop, many with no experience using industrial tools and equipment. Teenagers are often tough, but Fred treated every student with respect – as a person who was capable and a valued member of the class. “Shop class was for everyone,” remembers Erin “Syd” Sydney ’00. “A little punk-inspired kid like me with a chain wallet and other suspect fashion choices…would be made to feel just as welcome in his shop as a kid that was making different choices.”
As a teacher, Fred paid attention, listened, and asked questions. He was a partner when students wanted to take on special projects for Founders’ Day, engineering competitions, or any number of “other oddball ideas.” He noticed when students were running afoul of the rules and gently, but firmly, helped them course-correct. The high standards of the shop were applied everywhere, said Sydney, “And when conflict arose, [Fred] would meet it head-on, firmly but without judgement and with a rather unexpected warmth in his eyes.”
Fred Tefft passed away on Sept. 24, 2026. But in homes across the Upper Valley, the finely-crafted evidence of his more than two decades of teaching remains. “I have no doubt that if surveyed, the Thetford Academy sending area homes still have the highest quality key racks, small bookcases, and benches to be found,” said Adam Sharkey ’92. Each piece holds a memory of a teacher who believed in his students, asked questions, and listened to understand – a teacher who made students feel safe.
