Background
In 1955, the first pastor, Rt. Rev. J. H. Irwin, established Saints Peter and Paul School to satisfy the needs of a growing Catholic community on the Eastern Shore. The school was originally staffed by the Dominican Sisters from New York. In 1958, the commitment was made to establish the high school to provide a continuing opportunity for Catholic education for the graduating students. Over the years, the facility has grown, including the Saints Peter and Paul Gymnasium built in 1963, and the Father John Farrington academic wing which was built in 1970 and houses the high school library and classrooms for the middle school.
Under the leadership of Father Howard T. Clark, formerly the Superintendent of Schools for the Wilmington Diocese, extensive renovations were made to both the interior and exterior facility, including the Father Farrington Plaza adjoining the gymnasium, and to the restructuring of the curriculum to create a comprehensive college preparatory Catholic high school. During the 1990s, Father Paul Jennings guided the creation of a separate high school facility and supervised the growth of the school community.
Father Robert Coine became pastor in 1999 with the mission to build a new church and parish facility and to foster a spiritual and academic community rooted in faith that will continue to provide for the Catholic community of the Eastern Shore. While capital campaigns targeted funds for the new church and rectory, no plans were made to improve the school facilities. In particular, the high school facility was, and still is, in dire need of renovation to meet student needs and local building code.
2008 marked the high school's 50th anniversary of existence and held a year-long celebration in commemoration. On October 9, 2009, Father Coine, the current pastor, announced that there was a probability that the high school would close next year. As a result, a committee was formed called The Next 50 Years Committee. Its mission statement: sustain and support Saints Peter and Paul High School and Catholic education in the Mid-Shore region. Within a month of its formation, the committee raised more than $500,000 in donations from concerned parishioners, parents, alumni, and friends of the high school, hopefully enabling the school to focus on rebuilding and revitalization.
Since 2002, enrollment at the Saints Peter and Paul High has been steady fluctuating between a low of 190 students to a high of 214 students despite no capital improvements and limited marketing. The Saints Peter and Paul High School is the only facility of its kind on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, with the nearest Catholic school more than 50 miles away.
Read more about this topic: Saints Peter And Paul High School
Famous quotes containing the word background:
“They were more than hostile. In the first place, I was a south Georgian and I was looked upon as a fiscal conservative, and the Atlanta newspapers quite erroneously, because they didn’t know anything about me or my background here in Plains, decided that I was also a racial conservative.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“I had many problems in my conduct of the office being contrasted with President Kennedy’s conduct in the office, with my manner of dealing with things and his manner, with my accent and his accent, with my background and his background. He was a great public hero, and anything I did that someone didn’t approve of, they would always feel that President Kennedy wouldn’t have done that.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment; that background which the painter may not daub, be he master or bungler, and which, however awkward a figure we may have made in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum, where no indignity can assail, no personality can disturb us.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)