Montgomery Catholic Students Celebrate Mardi Gras

The students at all four Montgomery Catholic campus locations celebrated Mardi Gras to ring in the holy season of Lent. The day began at the High School campus where the Sophomore class hosted their annual Mardi Gras Prayer Breakfast. Serving a meal of pancakes, eggs, and bacon, the students invited faculty, local clergy, and special guests from the community to enjoy breakfast and fellowship with all the high school students. The highlight of the breakfast was special guest speaker Mr. Dennis Hoyer, a Ph.D. candidate at Auburn University, who spoke to the school about the importance of self-sacrifice and responding to acts of love by also loving in return.

Immediately following breakfast, the marching band and Sophomores took the party on the road and visited the St. Bede and Holy Spirit Campuses to give them their very own Mardi Gras parades. The high schoolers tossed candy, toys, beads, and snacks to the eager elementary students while the band played a repertoire of popular Mardi Gras parade tunes. It was a fun and festive day to help to ring in the holy season of Lent.

Montgomery Catholic's Loretto Chapter of National Honor Society Welcomes New Members

On February 19, 2020, the Loretto Chapter of the National Honor Society inducted 32 new members into its ranks. NHS President Clare Wilson, Treasurer Chris Valencia, and Secretary Ashley Hayes welcomed the inductees and acknowledged the high level of achievement in academics, leadership, character, and service required for them to join NHS. In addition to the induction of members new to NHS, the Loretto Chapter also welcomed 4 transfers from other chapters: Allison Berg, Mason Branam, Mary Carley, and Madison Kille. Loretto Chapter advisor Jeanene Crenshaw, MCPS President Anne Ceasar, and High School Principal Justin Castanza also presented each senior with the graduation stole that will be worn on commencement day.

The National Honor Society (NHS), established in 1921, is a national recognition program for students who show achievement in scholarship, leadership, service, and character. High School students are selected for membership through an application process and are selected by the faculty council. Candidates must meet the chapter's requirement for scholarship, service, leadership, and character in order to be selected for membership. Continued participation in service projects and upholding the ideals of the school are required to retain membership. Members must also maintain the chapter's required cumulative grade point average, 3.75.

The inductees to the Loretto Chapter of National Honor Society are: Gracie Barranco, Jasmine Blakeney, Maria Cervantes, Aidan Cochran, Carlo De Jesus, Devan DeRamus, Mitchell Dogan, Mai Ellington, Daniel Gacha, Emma Garrison, Angela Gier, Ines Gonzalez-Ansaldi, Alex Hines, Cecilia Hoffpauir, Myles Jordan, Jayla Milam, Camille Morgan, Molly Nicklay, John Niemi, Ellie Pool, Rachel Rodriguez, James Saliba, Piper Schneider, Harrison Skala, Chad Waite, Valerie Waite, Ja’Michael Washington, Alexis Weber, and Chloe Weber.

Graduating seniors from the Loretto Chapter of National Honor Society are: Lorissa Algarin, Sarah Rose Burden, Jack Burt, Tanner Carter, Olivia Cheriyan, Bobby Crawford, Ansley Dean, Nathan Downes, Lainie Doyle, Jason Flowers, Victoria Hall, Ashley Hayes, Michael Hodges, Sofia Izer, Savannah Johnson, Jayla Milam, Denalie Mosakowski, Robert Scott Nation, Katherine O'Connor, Charles O'Donnell, Katherine Perkins, Anna Sadie, Landry Samuels, Elizabeth Speirs, Kinley Tadlock, Chris Valencia, Chad Waite, Clare Wilson, Ja'Michael Washington, Alexis Weber, and Chloe Weber.

25 Montgomery Catholic Students Selected for Alabama Bandmasters Association Honor Bands

The Alabama Bandmasters Association selects students for its honor bands through a rigorous audition process, and this year a record number of students from Montgomery Catholic’s middle and high school band programs earned spots in both the District VI and State Honor Bands. 12 students from the middle school and 13 students from the high school were chosen to perform in the ABA District VI Honor Bands, and of those, 3 middle school students and 11 high school students will represent Montgomery Catholic in the All-State Honor Bands.

Alex Johnson, Director of Bands, and Kristine Johnson, Assistant Band Director, could not have been more excited about the achievement of their students.

"Mrs. Johnson and myself can't express how proud we are of the record number of All-District and All-State Honor Band members from our school this year,” said Mr. Johnson. “This is just one piece of evidence that displays the character, motivation, and work ethic of our fantastic student musicians."

Montgomery Catholic recently unveiled a new performing arts classroom facility at the middle and high school campus. The new building houses the band, choral, and drama departments and features classrooms for band and chorus, individual practice rooms, instrument storage, and offices for staff. There is also a student center that serves as a gathering space to facilitate club meetings and other activities.

Middle School District VI Honor Band Members: Ella An, Aidan Blum, Hunter Dailey, Sarah Ellis, David Huston, John Scott Jackson, Anna Lathram, Monica Nguyen, Izzy Priori, Keveen Ramirez, Peter Riello, and Hannah Traff

Middle School All-State Honor Band Members: Aidan Blum, Hunter Dailey, and John Scott Jackson

High School District VI Honor Band Members: Michael Algarin, Ryan Avery, Mason Branam, Bobby Crawford, Mai Ellington, Angela Gier, Victoria Hall, Ashley Hayes, Theo Hornsby, Jackson Ingalls, Maddy Kille, Jackson Penso, and Josie Smith

High School All-State Honor Band Members: Michael Algarin, Ryan Avery, Bobby Crawford, Mai Ellington, Angela Gier, Victoria Hall, Ashley Hayes, Theo Hornsby, Jackson Ingalls, Maddy Kille, and Jackson Penso

Montgomery Catholic Robotics Teams Head to State Competition

For the fourth year in a row, the Montgomery Catholic Preparatory School RoboKnights will be heading to the VEX Robotics State Competition. Two high school teams, “Happy Little Accidents” and “Insert Team Name Here,” and two middle school teams, “Last Resort” and “The Sevies,” will compete at the state level at the end of February.

Happy Little Accidents team member Arthur Murray is extremely excited about the upcoming competition.

“We’re hoping to make it to Worlds again,” said Murray, whose 2018-2019 team qualified for the VEX Robotics World Competition in 2019. “We’ve been working on our Tower Takeover build since the challenge was announced at Worlds last year.” In this season alone, Happy Little Accidents has been crowned Tournament Champion 5 times and has won two Robot Skills awards and one Excellence award.

The VEX Robotics challenge this year is called “Tower Takeover,” and like in previous challenges, two alliances of two robots face each other on the playing field. The teams are tasked with using their robots to stack cubes of various colors in goal zones at the corners of the playing field. Robots can also place cubes into cups that are elevated above the playing field and increase the number of points scored by the stacks of cubes. Like in previous challenges, robots can score additional points by demonstrating autonomous programs in the first 15 seconds of each round. The remaining minute and 45 seconds are driver-controlled and allow the teams to demonstrate not only their designs but also their skills at operating their robots.

Happy Little Accidents is comprised of Murray, junior and VEX Worlds alumni Aidan Cochran, and 8^th grader Hunter Dailey. Insert Team Name Here includes sophomores Chris Lathram (a VEX Worlds alumni), Andres Lemuz, and Jake Talbot. Last Resort is comprised of 7^th graders Zack Azar, David Huston, Merritt Payne, Will Sasser, and Jackson Wright. The Sevies includes 7^th graders Ben Chitlik, Antonio Lemuz, Jaden Sigler, and Harrison Vaughn.

Montgomery Catholic Elementary Campuses Celebrate Parents Love Lunch

Each year on February 14, the Montgomery Catholic Preparatory School Holy Spirit and St. Bede elementary campuses celebrate the most special people in their lives: their parents. Parents, grandparents, and other special friends took some time during their busy afternoons to come to campus and eat lunch with their students. It’s a day that both the students and their families find very special, and it is a beautiful way to demonstrate love and caring on St. Valentine’s Day.

Montgomery Catholic Senior Sofia Izer is National Merit Finalist

Officials of the National Merit Scholarship Corporation have named Montgomery Catholic student Sofia Izer as a National Merit Scholarship Finalist. She will compete with other finalists for some 7,600 National Merit Scholarships worth more than $31 million.

To be considered for a Merit Scholarship award, students must fulfill several requirements and advance to the finalist level of the competition. The preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test serves as an initial screening of program entrants. In addition to the PSAT test scores, the student's academic record, community involvement, leadership ability, and personal essay are considered when determining semifinalists. About 90 percent of the semifinalists, who were announced in September 2019, attained finalist standing, and approximately half of the finalists will win a National Merit Scholarship, earning the title of Merit Scholar.

Sofia is currently a senior at Montgomery Catholic. Not only is she a top scholar, but she is also very active in a variety of school activities. She is a member of the Key Club, National Honor Society, and Mu Alpha Theta. She is also a varsity cheerleader and holds a black belt in Taekwondo. She is active in her parish, Holy Spirit Catholic Church in Montgomery, and volunteers her time during Vacation Bible School. Sofia is an aspiring architect who enjoys the merging of her favorite things: art, math, and design.

Senior Clare Wilson was recognized in September 2019 for being a National Merit Commended Scholar. While she will not have an opportunity to participate in the National Merit Scholarship competition, she ranks in the top 3% of all high school students nationwide who took the PSAT/NMSQT.

Montgomery Catholic Dedicates New Performing Arts Building

On the evening of February 10, 2020, friends, supporters, faculty, and students of Montgomery Catholic Preparatory School gathered inside the new performing arts building at the middle and high school campus for its dedication by Thomas J. Rodi, Archbishop of Mobile. It was standing room only as a large crowd amassed to take part in the ceremony to unveil and bless the new facility.

“They’ve always had fine arts,” said Miss Gwen Byrd, Superintendent of Catholic Schools of the Archdiocese of Mobile, in her opening remarks about Montgomery Catholic. “But now this is a facility for the arts, and it’s going to get better and better for our curriculum.”

The 51-year old Father Pat Delahunty Memorial Gymnasium, which was replaced by a 33,000 square foot athletic center in the fall of 2019, was breathed new life as a state-of-the-art performing arts classroom facility. The transformation of the Fr. Delahunty comes at a time when the band, chorus, and drama programs are seeing tremendous growth and expansion, and Archbishop Rodi emphasized the importance of incorporating the arts into a well-rounded curriculum.

“God has given us talents and abilities,” Archbishop Rodi said, “and a Catholic school educates the whole student, going to back to the concept of being educated academically, athletically, socially, culturally, and spiritually. That’s a unique gift of a Catholic school.”

When Director of Bands Alex Johnson took the helm in 2010, the marching band only had 12 members. Today, the award-winning Marching Knights band features over 60 musicians and auxiliary members and grows each year. The concert band program has around 80 students in grades 7 through 12 and 50 students in grade 5 and 6.  In the spring of 2019, the 7^th grade, 8^th grade, and high school concert bands each earned straight superior ratings in all categories at the Alabama Bandmasters Association Musical Performance Assessment, an honor that had not achieved by all three bands simultaneously before. Additionally, 25 students from the middle and high school bands were selected for the 2020 ABA District VI Honor Bands, 11 of whom were also selected for the 2020 Alabama All-State Honor Bands.

“This facility is not just a building; it is a representation of our past, present, and future as a school and specifically of the fine arts program,” said Alex Johnson. “When I started 10 years ago, we only had 12 students in the Marching Knights. I knew that there was nothing that I could do as an individual to turn the program around. But those kids who were the ones who turned it around. They dug their heels in and made everything happen, which snowballed and has led us here today.”

The choral and drama departments are also looking forward to the renovation as the new building will feature a classroom space dedicated to both programs. The high school choir sings at every weekly school Mass. Serving the greater community, the choir also sings at the annual Red Mass held at St. Peter Catholic Church to mark the beginning of the judicial year. They were also invited to sing at the 25^th anniversary celebration of the Montgomery Area Perpetual Adoration Chapel at Our Lady Queen of Mercy Church. In the 2018-2019 season, the drama students performed A Christmas Hard Day’s Knight in the style of a madrigal dinner theater, followed in the spring by the 2012 revival version of Stephen Schwartz’s Godspell. This fall, students from all four Montgomery Catholic campuses performed a scenes program, Alabama Stories, a montage of excerpts from plays that take place in Alabama. The drama program will perform Thoroughly Modern Millie in the spring of 2020.

The Building on Faith, Family & Tradition capital campaign raised over $3.5 million in the eleven months after the campaign began. Groundbreaking for the new gym took place on October 10, 2017, and the first phase of the campaign saw the completion of a 33,000 square foot athletic complex which was opened in August 2019. The second phase saw the conversion of the Fr. Delahunty Gym into a climate-controlled fine and performing arts building that houses the band, choral, and drama departments. The renovated building features classrooms for band and chorus, individual practice rooms, instrument storage, and offices for staff. There is also a student center that serves as a gathering space to facilitate club meetings and other activities.

Montgomery Catholic Students Celebrate Australia

The students at the Montgomery Catholic Preparatory School Holy Spirit Campus took a staycation Down Under for their annual Cultural Day, learning all about the country of Australia. Parent volunteers served as tour guides for the students who led them to different classrooms outfitted with various lessons on the geography, history, art, music, and daily life of Australians. They made crafts, enjoyed “fairy bread” (buttered bread with sprinkles), and a few “lucky” students even got to try a polarizing Australian favorite, Vegemite sandwiches. The students learned about the plight of the animals suffering as a result of the recent Australian bushfires, so they collected donations of “Dollas for Koalas” to help with conservation efforts. To cap off the day, the students had a presentation from guest speaker Kathleen Weber, a Holy Spirit parent and native Australian. It was a fun day of hands-on learning about a culture that is half a world away yet so close to our own.