For over two decades the Bay School Community Arts Center in Mathews has hosted an annual Art Auction fundraiser. The event offers the community the opportunity to enjoy good fellowship, cocktails, food and music. Those attending also support the Bay School by participating in silent and live auctions featuring good art, trips, exciting experiences and other treasures.
The annual program changes but one unique item—The Jacket—has become a staple of the live auction and is sold year after year.
The Jacket legend began at one auction when the bidding for art items was slowing down. In an attempt to spur on the charitable giving, Art Miller, a longtime supporter of the Bay School, stood up and declared that his belief in the Bay School was so strong that he would give the Bay School “the shirt off his back.”
Art took off the jacket he was wearing, held it up, and the bidding began. Bay School records do not identify the purchaser or the amount of the sale that year...