He came to us from the Hotchkiss School, majored in English, served as treasurer of Ivy Club, played on the varsity football, hockey (captain), and baseball teams, and served as a Chapel deacon. He then served in the Marines for two years.
In 1956 he returned to Hotchkiss as an English teacher, coach, and mentor to generations of students who looked upon him as a preserver of the environment and champion of the individual. While teaching, he earned a master’s degree in English from Middlebury College’s Bread Loaf School in 1969. He married Ellen Rainbolt in 1961. He retired in 1997 and they moved to Charleston, S.C. He loved the low country and enjoyed golfing, fishing, kayaking, bird watching, and photographing wildlife.
While at Hotchkiss, he bought a farm in Maine, and he continued to spend part of each of the next 40 years improving, replanting, building trails, and restocking streams. It is a tribute to Blair that the farm is in the National Trust and will never be developed. Ellen died in 2012. He married Eugenia Martin in 2014.
Blair is survived by Eugenia; three children, Lyle III ’78, Kimball ’78, and Katherine ’84; six grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren. He was predeceased by son Matthew.