By Tom Ayres, Vermont Standard Senior Staff Writer
Philanthropist Max Comins, the former owner/operator of the Kedron Valley Inn in South Woodstock, has pledged a $1.5 million conditional challenge grant to the Mountain Views School District (MVSD) to help fund construction of an all-new high school and middle school.
Comins’ pledge to the school building fund is structured as a dollar-for-dollar challenge grant, “designed to inspire additional private investment in the future of Mountain Views’ students and their families,” MVSD administrators said in a statement last Friday. If voters in the seven towns that comprise the MVSD approve a $111.9 million school construction bond via Australian balloting at Town Meeting next Tuesday, Comins will match private donations up to a total of $1.5 million if they are pledged within the next 12 months. If fully matched, the Comins grant would generate $3 million in private support for the new school project, reducing the burden on taxpayers and helping MVSD meet a required outside funding threshold that is built into the bond question voters will consider on Tuesday.
There are, in fact, two contingencies attached to Tuesday’s bond vote that must be met before the school district moves forward with borrowing money for the new school building and fundraising to match Comins’ pledge. First, the school district must be awarded at least 25% of the amount borrowed from federal or state grants, other revenue sources, private philanthropy, and gifts such as Comins has pledged. And secondly, the Vermont Legislature, prior to the end of its current session in Montpelier, must enact legislation to separate capital construction debt from the per-pupil spending penalty built into the state’s current education funding formula.
If the paired contingencies are met at the federal, state, and local levels — and voters approve the bond — taxpayers in MVSD towns could ultimately bear only $84 million of the cost over the next 30 years. That is $15 million less than the $99 million they would have been asked to pay under a previous bond proposal that was rejected by school district voters at Town Meeting in March 2024.
Comins was the owner/innkeeper of the Kedron Valley Inn for 17 years, beginning in 1985, before turning to a career in personal investment and trading that has proved enormously lucrative over the course of the past 24 years. According to Comins, shrewd investments have enabled him to give generously to the Woodstock community, including the current $1.5 million challenge grant he has offered to the MVSD school rebuild effort and a $500,000 challenge grant he gave in 2024 to The Thompson senior center for its recently completed, $4 million renovation project. In addition, Comins, late last year, agreed to purchase a 4.6-acre tract in Woodstock’s East End with the intent of constructing a state-of-the-art performing arts center at the eastern gateway to Woodstock Village. Comins’ acquisition of the property from current owner Phyllis Gerrish is slated to close in late April but is dependent on Comins and his project team’s success in navigating through ongoing land-use and environmental permitting discussions with state and local officials.
Comins has lived in Woodstock for four decades, garnering a reputation not only as an innkeeper, but also as a musical theater artist who has graced stages at Town Hall Theatre and the Little Theater in Woodstock in a variety of well-received musicals over the years, including “The Producers,” “South Pacific,” and “The Music Man.”
In a Zoom conversation with the Standard last weekend, Comins spoke about his most recent pledge to the new-school build project and his deep affection for Woodstock.
“I’ve had conversations with a lot of people in the community and [they’re] worried that without a new school being built, a lot of the younger folks who maybe grew up here or who are relatively new — people in their thirties and forties — will decide not to stay,” Comins offered. “And the feeling is that the community will suffer greatly from their departure,” he continued. “I want to do everything I can to help the community I’ve lived in now for over 40 years and that was so supportive of me when I had the inn and certainly supportive of me when I’ve been on the stage. I really think the community needs the school — and this is just me giving back to say thank you to the community in a way that I think is appropriate.”
MVSD superintendent Sherry Sousa saluted Comins in the statement released by the school district last week. “This generous commitment demonstrates confidence in our students, our educators, and in the future of our community,” Sousa said. “Max’s generosity not only provides critical financial support for the project — it challenges all of us to come together and invest in the future of our schools.”