Can anything good come out of Moultrie?
If you know anything about Dean Philip Stanhope Sheffield Covington, you don’t have to ask.Born in Moultrie, Georgia, Philip Covington graduated from Emory University in 1934 and embarked upon the study of law. He practiced law for three years in Georgia before deciding to pursue teaching and graduate study in English. After he earned a master’s degree in English at Duke University, he taught in Florida and in Charleston, SC before becoming associate professor of English at Wofford in 1947.
Three years later, he took on the thankless job of dean of students, and in 1953, new president Pendleton Gaines named him dean of the college. When President Gaines resigned abruptly in 1957, the trustees turned to Dean Covington, naming him acting president until they could bring Dr. Charles Marsh to campus in 1958. As chief academic officer from 1953 to 1969, Phil Covington hired a generation of faculty members, all of whom are now retired. He had a particular knack for picking professors, and most famously, hired geologist John Harrington after sitting next to him on an airplane.
Phil Covington was more than an administrator and teacher, he was a lover of tradition, skillful in the use of words, and by all accounts, a clever and engaging member of the community. Though he respected tradition and later in life said he wanted nothing about Wofford to change, he could poke fun at tradition and never took himself or his office too seriously. The stories of him are numerous and humorous, and according to Dr. Lewis Jones “not more than a third of them are apocryphal.” One of my favorites is the oft-repeated tale of how he was asked how he determined faculty salaries, and after staring out the window for a moment, he replied that he observed the flights of birds. Another favorite is the story about low enrollment in one particular department – he was overheard to say, as he looked out his office window, “I wonder what Dan Olds and his physics student are doing today.” Most of those stories, unfortunately, were never written down.
He created a few euphemisms that remain with us today. “The Wofford Way” is attributed to him. He meant it not entirely as a compliment. He meant it in sort of an English way of “muddling through.” His founder’s day addresses were the stuff of legend. He once gave a talk about Benjamin Wofford’s bones. A Shakespearean scholar, naturally he chose Mark Antony’s funeral oration in Julius Caesar as his text. (Keep an eye out, in a few weeks I’ll post the talk on Founder’s Day this year.) Despite poking fun at Old Ben every now and then, he had a great respect for the college’s founder, saying that his “very action in founding this college was a profession of faith in the eternal verities.”
At Dean Covington’s funeral in 1988, Dr. Lewis Jones quoted a 1951 Old Gold and Black story that began, “’On November 28, 1912, the population of Moultrie, Georgia was increased, for better or worse, by one.’ We know now—it was for better.”
If you have a Covington story or quote, why not share it with me? Leave a comment about Dean Covington so others can enjoy.

