Also in this Issue

President’s Report
Spring 2005 3
Spring came as more of a surprise than usual
this year. Just as I was getting used to the
routines of Regis High School in its 90 th year,
graduation looms on the horizon, and, like
the graduating seniors, I find myself looking
forward to graduation day with some regrets
that my year of return to Regis will soon be
over. It has been a most instructive year, this
school year of 2004-2005, and everything I
have learned about the Regis of today gives me
greater confidence in the Regis of tomorrow.
This year, for example, was a critical threshold year for the REACH
program, as the first cohort of eighth graders in the program took the
Regis scholarship exam and applied for scholarships at other Catholic
high schools. The results, as you will discover later in this issue, have
confirmed the wisdom of the investment that Regis and its alumni
made in this program as an extension of the original founding idea of
the School: to identify deserving young Catholic men who showed the
promise of leadership in lives of service.
It was, of course, a particular pleasure to be President of Regis High
School in the year that our basketball team won the N.Y. State Federation
championship. I particularly enjoyed our victory in the C.H.S.A.A.
championship game, which was played in the Fordham University gym. I
even smiled gamely when the C.H.S.A.A. official, an old friend, reminded
me when he presented me with the championship plaque that Fordham
had not won many championships during my years at the helm. Reaching
a little further back in history, however, I was pleased that the New York
Times in its October obituary of legendary coach Don Kennedy noted
that “his 1948 Regis team won the national schoolboy championship.”
One of the most encouraging discoveries I made in this return to Regis
was the enthusiastic support that the Regis Parents Club provides
for the School in so many original ways, from Father-Son Superbowl
parties to Mother-Son dances. The energy and imagination that
our Regis parents demonstrated in planning their March 19 auction
boggled my poor pedestrian mind. The results were impressive from a
financial standpoint, but the creativity of the organizers was even more
extraordinary to this aging Golden Owl.
The day after the Regis auction, which took as its theme this year,
Regis: A New York City Landmark, the news came of the passing of a
living landmark of Regis, the Rev. Stephen V. Duffy, S.J., “Father Regis,”
in the 92 nd year of his life. Fifty-six of those years Steve Duffy had
given to Regis High School as master teacher and tutor, and his passing
was perhaps the most important reason why the year 2004-2005, the
90 th year of the School’s existence, was a historic year for the Regis
community. It has been a great year to return to school.
Joseph A. O’Hare, S.J. ‘48