New School Building
In the fall of 1954, the school building was ready for its first classes. The little red-brick Catholic High School was fully loaded with a gymnasium, biology lab, chapel and cafeteria; all at a cost of $250,000. Archbishop Schulte suggested the name for the new school: Fr. Michael Edgar Shawe Memorial High School. The Madison Central Catholic athletes would also change their name from the Tigers to the current, Hilltoppers (for obvious reasons).
In 1967, the grade school students who were taught in the two grade schools downtown were welcomed into their new school adjacent to the high school on the hilltop. Pope John XXIII Elementary opened with the same fundraising tactics as used in the opening of Shawe Memorial (Craig).
Fundraising was the main reason both schools opened, and remained opened, for the past fifty-plus years. Auction dinners, golf tournaments, festivals and many more creative events have been held in the past, and most continue today.
Many argue that prayer has been the ultimate reason for the school’s success. School-sponsored prayer, long since banned from the public schools, is a recurring event at the school, right before the daily Pledge of Allegiance (God included, of course).
Read more about this topic: Shawe Memorial High School
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