MUSTANG MESSENGER - Bishop McNamara High School

More documents

Recommendations

Info

cultural exchange students from Pamplona, Spain experience life as a Mustang and learn about American culture, history and traditions “Julen and Sergio were so much fun to host. Their presence alone was great because there was never a dull moment and I always had two friends to just chill with. Along the way, I learned that teen life in other countries isn’t too far from our own!” ~ Justin Kelly ‘13 Bishop McNamara students were able to experience the merging of cultures when 30 Spanish students spent almost two weeks with host families. The students, accompanied by three teachers, traveled from Pamplona, Spain – home of the world famous San Fermin, otherwise known as Running of the Bulls, and brought to life by author Ernest Hemingway in his famous novel, The Sun Also Rises. Enrolled in Paz de Zegunda, a private school on the outskirts of the Basque city, the students came to Bishop McNamara with the intent to experience American culture, including education, history, food, and the language, sports, and hobbies. Organized by Language Department Chair and Spanish teacher, Mrs. Gina Gomez- Bozzo, this unique exchange began several years ago through personal contacts Mrs. Gomez-Bozzo established in Spain. As a reciprocal exchange, approximately 20 Bishop McNamara students will travel to Pamplona in late March 2013 to live with their Spanish peers for ten days where they will attend school and visit sites around the Basque region. During their exchange, the Spanish students were on a partial schedule with their teachers, spending three days shadowing Bishop McNamara students in class and spending three days visiting famous landmarks in Washington D.C. including the Smithsonian, U.S. Capitol, White House and Mt. Vernon. While with host families, the students experienced typical American life – going to sporting events, including a Mustang football game, participating in scouts, shopping, eating at local restaurants and even taking day trips to Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York City. The host families and students agreed the exchange was an invaluable experience, bridging the gap between two very different cultures and making the world just a little smaller. 10 Top: Bishop McNamara students and Spanish Students gather at Alumni Family Fun Day; Center: Spanish Students visit Washington D.C.; Right: Mr. Justin McClain ‘00, wife Bernadette, and son John- Paul enjoy a fall day with the Spanish students whom they hosted.
20 YEARS LATER by Alfred Odierno I t was twenty years ago - September 8, 1992. On that day McNamara High School became a coeducational institution. Up until then everything had been fine, or so we thought. McNamara was in its 27th year of existence and I was in my 13th year of teaching English there. We were all guys and we were happy as clams. Between compositions and vocabulary quizzes, we talked about the Redskins, last Saturday’s Mustang football game, and had belching contests. It was kind of like a fraternity, maybe a little more Animal House than Phi Beta Kappa some days, but we liked it just fine. But all was not well, for several years Catholic education in the Washington area had been under much duress. Between economic, cultural and demographic changes many a Catholic school was closing its doors. The newspapers were telling us how Catholic education was merely a quaint relic of another time, antiquated by the current day’s sensibilities and economically and culturally unworkable. And on our worst days we worried that they might be right. Enrollment everywhere was dropping like a rock. Our aging religious could not staff the classrooms in adequate numbers. Things were pretty bleak. Then in an act requiring equal parts faith, sacrifice and courage, the leadership of allmale Bishop McNamara High School and all-female La Reine High School made the difficult decision that the girls’ school would close and Bishop McNamara would remain open and move forward as a coeducational institution. The good news---secondary Catholic education would survive in Prince George’s County . The bad news---through the anguish it was hard to see the good news. Nobody was happy. We were losing our little clubhouse on Marlboro Pike and the girls on Silver Hill Road were losing their entire school, literally. For many at La Reine it was as if the home of their mothers, aunts, sisters and cousins, something that was theirs, and theirs alone, was being taken from them. And they were now being forced across town to go live with their evil uncle. This was an arranged marriage, not a love match. Mr. Odierno (right) with the Poetic Justice Club, c. 1992 The only reason I even remember that it was September, 1992, is because my now twenty-year-old son was born the night before the first day of classes. I had begged my wife a hundred times to have this child any day except the first day of school. Standing before a classroom of boys and girls together for the very first time at McNamara High School was a historic, momentous occasion that simply could not, and would not, be missed. With my newly arrived son’s cooperation I was able to get to school that morning directly from the hospital, bleary eyed, but on time and on cloud nine, going from the elation of one birth, now to be part of another birth --a new coed school! I was pretty excited--until I arrived in the classroom. As I walked in the door of my senior Brit Lit class for the first time, I saw huddled in one corner a group of former La Reine girls with a collective glare on their faces that could have vaporized any male within a five-mile radius. In the opposite corner cowering in abject fear were all the boys, football players included. It was clear that if one of the tenets of a Holy Cross education was ‘being family’ we definitely had our work cut out for us. It was indeed a memorable day and year. It could have been a disaster, but it wasn’t. It had its many ups and downs, and like a lot of things, some days the kids handled much of the transition better than the grownups. But we made it all work And now it’s been twenty years and the rest is history, as they say. Today as we look around this beautiful, bustling, successful, and remarkable school- it now seems as if it’s always been that way. I don’t think anybody, myself included, would have even remembered it has been so many years if I didn’t have my son’s birthday to remind me. And of course, like all things, those many years have passed by now in a blur. But what I can tell you about those twenty years since boys and girls first joined together in secondary Christian education in Prince George’s County is how many stereotypes have been crushed, prejudices dismantled, new voices added to the exchange of ideas, fears defeated, minds opened, new bonds created, lifelong friends made and I think even a marriage or two thrown in for good measure. Every mother knows how birth can be a painful process, but one rewarded a hundred times over by the gift of new life. And in many ways that is what becoming coed was for us all. Never forgetting the painful sacrifices made and the courage shown by those first coed students who gave up what had meant so much to them, and the heartwrenching decisions made by those in our schools’ leadership positions, in order to allow for the this living, breathing, gift of the outstanding coeducational school community we have now become. Today it’s just like the alma mater says—“brotherhood and sisterhood in Christian unity...”. Happy twentieth (coed) Birthday. “Today as we look around this beautiful, bustling, successful, and remarkable school - it now seems as if it’s always been that way.” 11
Page 1 and 2: FALL 2012 MUSTANG MESSENGER News fo
Page 3 and 4: President’s Message 3 Dear Bishop
Page 5 and 6: ‘to think with Christ’ We exten
Page 8 and 9: Campus Chatter This summer, Shadia
Page 12 and 13: Presidents’ Ro 12 With the presid
Page 14 and 15: Alumni Family Fun Weekend brought t
Page 16 and 17: Alumni 16 ‘82 Ken Harris, whose g
Page 18 and 19: Alumni Jeff Kinney ‘89 was a feat
Page 20 and 21: Alumni Maxwell Allegro, a King’s
Page 22 and 23: Arts Calendar Fine Arts Christmas F
Page 24: BISHOP McNAMARA HIGH SCHOOL 6800 Ma

MUSTANG MESSENGER - Bishop McNamara High School

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?