Benedictine Mourns Barry Gibrall, Teacher and Voice of the Cadets

Barry Gibrall had a word for the exceptional students who passed through his classroom at Benedictine College Preparatory: wizard. The English, poetry, creative writing and journalism teacher spent 25 years at the Goochland County school earning a few superlatives of his own before his death on March 23, 2026, at 79.

Hundreds filled the school gymnasium on March 30 for a memorial service honoring Gibrall, whose voice as the Cadets' public address announcer had become as familiar to Benedictine families as the school's own traditions. Benedictine Schools of Richmond President Jesse Grapes, who broke the news to the community following Gibrall's death, called him "a wise, gentle, and loving man of great warmth and wisdom" and said his legacy would be "his unabashed love for Benedictine and his unwavering dedication to the places where the Benedictine spirit lives."

Born Wilbur Barry Gibrall on June 5, 1946, and raised on Tilden Avenue in Richmond, he attended Benedictine long before he ever taught there. Known as "Bear" in his student days, Gibrall was a member of the Class of 1964 and played on the 1962 Cadet football team that won the state championship on an undefeated season, the only time any team in the school's history has finished without a loss. He also started four years as catcher on Benedictine's baseball team. For the rest of his life, Gibrall carried that 1962 record as a point of pride, pressing current Cadets with the question: "But are they undefeated?"

After graduating, Gibrall earned a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Humanities degree from the University of Richmond. He spent years as an entrepreneur before shifting to education, teaching first at Godwin High School in Henrico County and then returning to his alma mater in 2000.

For the next 25 years, Gibrall taught English, poetry, creative writing and journalism, serving simultaneously as Athletic Director from 2000 to 2010. English instructor Michael Kaplan remembered his combination of candor and charisma as what made him effective with students. "His voice made him stand out," Kaplan said. "He had a great accent and phenomenal sense of humor, but he was just honest, real honest with the boys, whether it was with the sports or with their writing."

A colleague who shared office space with Gibrall in her early years at Benedictine described him as "a living encyclopedia of Benedictine history and a friend to everyone who walked through the door," and said he not only taught poetry to teenage boys but instilled a genuine love for the subject in generations of young men.

Head of School Greg Lilly called Gibrall "a link to the past" who had "such a desire to help others and a love for Benedictine and for education." The school Gibrall devoted himself to relocated from its historic Sheppard Street campus in Richmond's Museum District to the 73-acre Benedictine Abbey campus in Goochland County in 2013, but the institutional memory Gibrall carried with him made the move feel less like a rupture than a continuation. Funeral arrangements were handled by Bliley's Funeral Home in Richmond.