ST. MARY’S Academy students hold up anniversary banner. Pictured in back, from left, are fifth graders Colin McLoughlin and Hope Pipkin. In the front are Henry Perez and Violet Young and seated to right is Morgan Donivan.
ST. MARY’S Academy students hold up anniversary banner. Pictured in back, from left, are fifth graders Colin McLoughlin and Hope Pipkin. In the front are Henry Perez and Violet Young and seated to right is Morgan Donivan.
St. Mary’s Academy in The Dalles — founded in 1864 by a Quebec-based religious order dedicated to education — is celebrating its 150th anniversary throughout this school year.
Students will help create a time capsule to be opened in 25 years, go on scavenger hunts for local history-related landmarks, and, instead of marking the traditional 100th day of school, will celebrate the 150th day, on May 1, 2015.
“To get to 150 years is quite an accomplishment, a continuous 150 years,” said St. Mary’s Principal Kim Koch.
The school’s annual auction in February will focus on the anniversary, with décor including historical photos going back more than a century, Koch said.
The auction trip, the largest raffle prize of the evening, will be a visit to Quebec in honor of the founders of the school.
Blessed Marie-Rose Durocher founded the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary in 1843 in Quebec. In 1859, at the invitation of the local archbishop, the order founded a mission in Portland, then population 2,900. A St. Mary’s Academy was founded in Portland that year, and remains the oldest continuously operating secondary school in Oregon.
Five years later, in August 1864, a quartet of sisters established a St. Mary’s Academy in The Dalles. (See sidebar) They were the only school in town for several decades.
The theme of the year-long celebration is “take time to…” and all the classes are participating in completing that thought, with notions ranging from “be brave, be compassionate, show others you care, listen, follow the golden rule,” Koch said.
Each month students will be given a series of clues to find a local landmark. Everyone who figures it out is invited to take a selfie at the location and post it on the school’s Facebook page.
There will be monthly prize winners and a grand prize winner at the end of the year.
The year will conclude with an art auction on Saturday, May 2, the day after the 150th day of school, featuring student art for students, families, alumni and the community.
The time capsule will be buried after the May celebrations. A committee of staff and parents are meeting throughout the year to plan anniversary events.
Anniversaries are a time to reflect, and Koch said, “St. Mary’s has continued to thrive, despite challenge, whether it be natural disasters, fires, flood, the economy.”
The reason it has, she said, is “because the focus has remained excellence in education.
The sesquicentennial is being worked into the curriculum throughout the school, which goes from pre-school to eighth grade.
Students are incorporating it into math lessons and history lessons, touching on both Oregon history and U.S.-Canadian history.
The scavenger hunt is a way to let kids have fun while learning about the town’s history. “We’re 150 years old and there’s lots of things in The Dalles that are almost that old or older,” Koch said.
The school had special t-shirts made for this year to commemorate its 150th and also had a new logo designed with a time capsule on it.
The school is partnering with St. Vincent de Paul The Dalles to help with projects and students will wear the aniversary T-shirts. The school’s foundation also has a goal of raising $150,000 this year – hoping for $1,000 gifts from 150 people — to bring its endowment fund up to $1 million.
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