View the dedication of the NEW BMC Durfee High School building here: Click on this link
Alumni Meetings:
Durfee High School Alumni Meeting Dates
2024 - 2025
Meetings are held at the Granite Grille
October 21, 2024, 6PM
January 14, 2025, Lunch 11:30 AM
November 18, 2024, 6PM
February 11, 2025, Lunch 11:30 AM
December 10, 2024, Lunch 11:30 AM
March 10, 2025, 6PM
April 14, 2025, 6PM
May 12, 2025, 6PM
June 9, 2025 6PM
B.M.C. Durfee High School Alumni Assoc. Annual Meeting, Thursday, May 22, 2025 at 6:00 PM
Please join us to honor Scholarship Recipients and Distinguished Alumni.
2025 Distinguished Alumni Recipients
Distinguished Alumnus Thomas ‘Skip’ Karam, Durfee Class of 1953
Born and raised in Fall River, Thomas “Skip” Karam grew up in a tenement in the Flint neighborhood. His father
had immigrated from Lebanon and met his soon-to-be wife, and they settled in her hometown of Fall River. Skip
attended Aldrich and Davis Schools and graduated from BMC Durfee High School in 1953. After Durfee he
attended Tabor Academy for one year, where he received the Circle of Excellence Award, which honors those
who personify Tabor’s mission to connect, serve, and lead. Skip went on to Providence College and played
basketball for the Friars during the 1955-56 season, but after having to hitchhike home after too many practices,
he decided it was too much. He received his BA in 1958 and his MA from Bridgewater State University in 1965
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After a brief stint as the Westport High basketball coach, Skip made the move back to Fall River as Durfee’s
head basketball coach. At just 26 years old, he was terrified to follow the great Luke Urban, his former coach; but as it turned out, he was to have one of the most successful coaching careers in Massachusetts high school history. His very first season, he led the Hilltoppers to 16 straight wins, and it ended by playing at the Boston Garden.
Shortly after, he was named of vice principal at Durfee while continuing to coach. In 1966, just 8 years into his coaching career, he took his team to the final game at the Garden, and this time brought the state championship home to Fall River. 11 years later, there would be another banner hanging from the rafters, when in 1977 they not only took the state title but also finished with an impressive 26-0 record. Back then,
they were playing at the Bank Street Armory and the Hilltoppers were packing them into an often standing-room-only gym that was bursting at the seams. Two years later, the new Durfee opened in the north end of the city and starting in the 1978-1979 season, Skip and his boys would fill a much larger field house, with a capacity of over 2000. If you lived in the area in the 1980’s, you were most likely at an often sold-out
Durfee basketball game on a Tuesday or Friday night. The new building seemed to only add to Durfee’s rich basketball tradition. These kids were tough, well-coached and grew up playing together. From 1984-1989, Skip would add three more state championship banners; in ‘84 and ‘89 they were again undefeated and ‘88 saw only one loss, early in the season, which led the Toppers to a record-breaking 46 consecutive victories. Skip became the first full time athletic director in Durfee’s history, and continued to develop phenomenal athletes, not only in basketball but across all of Durfee athletics.
In his distinguished career as the head coach of the B.M.C.Durfee High School boys basketball team, he amassed 659 wins, 35 trips to the state tournament, 7 appearances in the championship game and 5 state championships, with an average of 18 wins per season. . . for 36
years. He has developed and mentored athletes that have gone on to play at many colleges in New England and throughout the country, with one, of course, going on to play for the Denver Nuggets and the Boston Celtics. He was the first coach in Massachusetts history to win 500 games, and was inducted into the BMC Durfee Athletics Hall of Fame, the Massachusetts and New England Basketball Coaches Association Halls of Fame, and finally, in 2019, into the New England Basketball “The Legends Hall of Fame”. The basketball court at Durfee High School was re-dedicated in his honor in December 2021. Additionally, the annual Thomas “Skip” Karam Holiday Tournament is held at Durfee each December, celebrating his legacy and fostering community engagement through basketball.
Skip is the husband of Elizabeth A. (DeFusco) Karam, the father of Jennifer Karam Medeiros, Elizabeth Karam McCarthy and the late Thomas John Karam, grandfather to three and great grandfather to one. Also, as he accepts this Distinguished Alumni Award, he becomes the third of three brothers to be honored by the Durfee Alumni Association, with James J. Karam, class of 1965 and Robert S. Karam, class of 1961. Congratulations to the Karam family!
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Distinguished Alumnus William “Bill” R. Eccles, Jr., Durfee class of 1969
William “Bill” R. Eccles, Jr. started his working career at the age of eight in his dad’s part-time painting and
wall-papering business. At ten, his entrepreneurial spirit led him to set up a service at the cemetery on
Memorial Day Weekend shuttling plants from visitors’ cars to their loved-ones’ graves. Later he delivered
papers, worked as a caddy and as a hawker selling novelties, and eventually got a job at McWhirr’s
department store in the advertising-billing department. Little did he know that this background was great
training for his future banking career.
In 1969, after graduating from B.M.C. Durfee High School, Bill began working as customer service represen-
tative at Fall River Five Cents Savings Bank (BankFive). More than fifty years later, Bill retired as the
President and CEO after a career that saw the bank grow from 45 million dollars to more than a billion. After
working in many positions throughout the bank, in 1984 Bill was named Vice President, in charge of six retail
branches, and Senior Lending Officer. In 1989, he became Senior Vice President and Senior Lending Officer-
Loan Administrator where he managed the daily operation of Credit Administration, Real Estate Foreclosures, Loan Workout, Retail Loan Services, Commercial Loan Services, and Building and Grounds. Bill was promoted to Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer in 2009, and in 2010 was named President and Chief Executive Officer, where he served until July 2020.
Bill worked for five bank presidents during his career, Douglas J. Richardson, Donald A. Bogle, Timothy J. Cotter, John J. McSweeney, and Thomas F. Lyons. He feels he learned the best from those leaders and took their skills into his own career. Bill participated in numerous bank development programs, including the Savings Bank Association of Massachusetts Supervisory School, the National Association of Mutual Savings Banks Residential Mortgage Lending School, a School of Special Studies at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and many Commercial Lending Development programs. Bill earned his Associates Degree from Fisher Junior College in 1981 and completed two programs at Fairfield University - the National School of Savings Banking of the National Association of Mutual Savings Banks in 1983 and the Executive Development Program of the National Council of Savings Institutions in 1985.
Bill’s Fall River education, at the Davol and Wiley schools, at Morton Junior High and at Durfee, was shaped by influential educators including Julia Harrington, Frederick Demetrius, George Rhodes, Donald Setters and S. Peter Khoury. Born and raised in Fall River, Bill’s commitment to the SouthCoast is unwavering. His volunteer commitments include: United Way for 20 years, five of them as Chairman of the Board; the USS Massachusetts Memorial Committee Board of Directors for 20 years; board member of the Fall River Chamber of Commerce for 20 years, including one year as its Chairman; Fall River Celebrates America; and 15 year sas treasurer of the Fall River Police Athletic League, Inc. As Chair of Building Hope for Heroes, Bill was instrumental in the success of a $1.3 million dollar capital campaign for the Veterans Transition House. Bill served on the President’s Council at SouthCoast Health Systems and was a member of St. Joseph Church’s Finance Committee.
Bill’s civic leadership and devotion to the community has been recognized numerous times: he received the John S. Brayton Community Service Award, the Timothy J. Cotter Community Service Award, the United Way’s Thomas F. Cooney Memorial Award, and the Roger Valcourt Outstanding Citizen of the Year Award. Bill was awarded the United Way of Greater New Bedford’s Campaign Chair Award. He also received the inaugural Champion of Veterans Award. In 2018 he was awarded the Paul Harris Fellow Award by the Rotary Club of Fall River. Under Bill’s leadership, BankFive established the BankFive Foundation Fund which supports the bank’s charitable works with donations to local non-profits.
Bill credits his own father, William R. Eccles, Sr., with teaching him the value of hard work and dedication to family. Bill has a daughter, Erin M. James, and a son, Billy (William R Eccles, III), and is also the devoted grandfather of five. Bill and his wife Lynn Marie currently reside in Swansea.
Links of Interest:
BMC Durfee High School
Fall River, MA
Hilltoppers
Athletic Logo
Clock Tower
In the original building