St. Mary Academy gives thanks for Blue Ribbon

The school choir at St. Mary Academy sang during an all-school prayer service in honor the school's recognition as a 2015 Blue Ribbon award. (Record Photo by Jessica Able)
The school choir at St. Mary Academy sang during an all-school prayer service in honor the school’s recognition as a 2015 Blue Ribbon award. (Record Photo by Jessica Able)

By Jessica Able, Record Staff Writer

The school community of St. Mary Academy in Prospect, Ky., gathered an all-school prayer service Nov. 20 to give thanks for its designation as a 2015 National Blue Ribbon School.

St. Mary Academy was one of four elementary schools in the Archdiocese of Louisville to be honored with a Blue Ribbon award by the U.S. Department of Education this fall. St. Albert the Great, St. Gabriel and St. Margaret Mary schools were also awarded the national distinction.

Mary Alice Zettel, principal of St. Mary, told those gathered in the school’s gymnasium that “it was a joyous occasion” and said the service was one of “jubilation, joy, respect and thankfulness.”

Zettel shared the story of how St. Mary, a regional school, opened in 2007 as a result of the merger of Mother of Good Counsel School on Westport Road and Immaculate Conception School in LaGrange, Ky. She said these two schools “wanted to be the best they could be for their students.”

She referred her listeners to the day’s reading from the Gospel of Matthew, in which Jesus says, “Let the little children alone, and do not stop them from coming to me.”

“That is what parents and parishioners of those two schools wanted,” Zettel said. “They wanted to continue to provide Catholic education for their children.

Zettel said many obstacles stood in the way of the new school. For the first two years, St. Mary operated on two separate campuses.

“It was hard to become a school — to become one school,” she said, noting that the change was difficult for many people and it took time to become a family.

She told the students that the Blue Ribbon award “affirms the hard work you’ve done.”

Zettel said St. Mary Academy may be a new school but it has “an old soul.”

“We may be rather new but we have the traditions, the dreams and the hopes of all those who came before us,” she said. “All those people from Immaculate Conception. All those people from Mother of Good Counsel. And, all your families who have come to St. Mary Academy because they want the best for you.”

Zettel also recognized parents, teachers, staff and former principals and pastors who worked “tirelessly to build one school.”

Following the prayer service, the students received blue T-shirts recognizing the school’s blue ribbon award.

Several other activities were planned for the remainder of the day, including an obstacle course. Pre-kindergarten through third-grade students participated in the course, which was meant to signify the obstacles the school has overcome, Zettel said. And fourth- through eighth-graders took part in the “Amazing Blue Ribbon Race,” in order to understand the importance of team work, Zettel said.

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