Type Private, All-Boys Established 1955 Phone +1 314-434-3690 Number of students 426 (2016) | Religious affiliation(s) Roman Catholic Church Principal Dr. Jared Rashford Founded 1955 Colors Red, Blue | |
Motto Laus Tibi Domine
(Latin: "Praise to Thee, Lord") Headmaster Rev. Gregory Mohrman, OSB '76 Address 500 S Mason Rd, St. Louis, MO 63141, USA Similar De Smet Jesuit High School, John Burroughs School, Mary Institute And St Lo, Christian Brothers College, Westmins Christian Academy Profiles | ||
The Saint Louis Priory School, a Roman Catholic secondary day school for boys, is located on a sprawling 150 acres in suburban St. Louis, Missouri, within the Archdiocese of Saint Louis. The school is run by the Benedictine monks of Saint Louis Abbey as part of their religious ministry.
Contents
History
The school was established in 1955, at the invitation of St. Louis Catholics, by monks of the Benedictine Ampleforth Abbey in Yorkshire, England. The corresponding Priory of Saints Louis and Mary (now Saint Louis Abbey), a Benedictine monastery, was established at the same time. The Priory, which is a member of the English Benedictine Congregation, became independent of Ampleforth in 1973, and was elevated to an Abbey in 1989.
The founding Prior (1955–1967) was author, monastic leader and former titular Abbot of Westminster, Reverend Columba Cary-Elwes. The founding headmaster was scholar and author Rev. Timothy Horner, O.S.B., who also founded the school's first athletic team, the Rebel Ruggers.
The history of the monastery and school was chronicled by founding monk and original headmaster Fr. Timothy Horner, O.S.B. in his In Good Soil: The Founding of the Saint Louis Priory School 1954-1973 (2001). In this history, Horner describes the initial contact with the interested St. Louis Catholic laymen, and explains the process of founding a new school in the English Benedictine Congregation.
Headmasters
- Rev. Timothy Horner, OSB 1955-1974
- Rev. Paul Kidner, OSB 1974-1983
- Rev. Finbarr Dowling, OSB 1983-1992
- Rev. Thomas Frerking, OSB 1992-1995
- Rev. Gregory Mohrman, OSB 1995-2005, first Priory alumnus to join the monastery, class of 1976
- Rev. Michael Brunner, OSB 2005-2012
- Rev. Linus Dolce, OSB 2012–2014
- Rev. Gregory Mohrman, OSB 2014–present
Academics
Priory offers an education shaped by the Benedictine order's tradition of Christian humanism, with particular attention to Roman Catholic theology, classical (Latin and Greek) and modern foreign languages (French, Spanish, and Mandarin Chinese), English and American literature, mathematics and the natural sciences, history, computer science, and the fine arts (vocal music, studio art, theater arts/communication, photography, stained glass art, and mass media and video production).
Students have the option to take up to 14 advanced placement courses, and honors classes begin with foreign languages in 8th grade, and in other disciplines beginning in high school. To graduate, students in their senior year must submit one of three types of theses: a research project, a work of creative writing, or a project in the visual or performing arts. Students must also participate in service to the community in order to graduate.
According to a March 2011 issue of Saint Louis Magazine, Priory's ACT average test score of 31 ranked first among St. Louis-area high schools. The online site Niche ranked Priory as the 2016 and 2017 Best Roman Catholic high school and Best All Boys high school in the St. Louis Metro area and Missouri,. It was ranked the 7th Best Roman Catholic school in the United States in 2016; in 2017, it was ranked the 5th Best Roman Catholic school and 10th Best All Boy's High School in the entire United States.
The Washington Post ranked Priory second, and the top private school, in Missouri, in its 2016 list of "America's Most Challenging High Schools."
Abbey Church
The Abbey Church was constructed in 1962. It is also known as the Church of St. Mary and St. Louis and the Priory Chapel. It was designed by Gyo Obata of Hellmuth, Obata and Kassabaum. The church's circular facade consists of three tiers of whitewashed, thin-shell concrete parabolic arches, the top one forming a bell-tower. The arches appear to float upward from their grassy base. They are faced with dark insulated-fiberglass polyester window walls which create a meditative translucency when viewed from within.
The church holds a 14th-century sculpture of the Madonna and Christ child, a 17th-century holy font in the Della Robbia style, and modern sacred art by artists from the United States, Great Britain, Spain, and France. The 2007 AIA|CPC Design Committee bestowed its Twenty-five Year Award on the Abbey Church/Priory Chapel.
On the grounds outside the church sit life-size sculptures of the abbey's patron saints, Saint Benedict, by Lithuanian-born artist Wiktor Szostalo, and the Holy Blessed Virgin Mother Mary, Our Lady of Grace, by American sculptor Philip Howie. The Abbey Church also serves as the home church for the Saint Louis Archdiocese parish of Saint Anselm.
Extracurriculars
Priory offers a range of extracurricular offerings for its students. These include the Record newspaper and Shield yearbook, opportunities to perform in theater and musical dramas, a Scholar Bowl academic competition team that participates in local and state tournaments, and student government.
The Junior Engineering Technical Society (JETS) hosts an annual competition, known as TEAMS, aimed at "challenging high school students in grades 9-12 to work together as a team to apply knowledge learned in the classroom to real-world engineering scenarios". Priory has performed well over the years in this competition, including a national championship in 2000.
Priory also hosts a robotics club, the Roborebels, that often does well in the annual local FIRST Robotics Competition. In 2010, the team took second place at the St. Louis Regional competition and in 2011 the team was again successful placing third. In 2013, the team won the Rockwell Collins Innovation & Control Award for their creative use of an overlay on the robot’s camera to enable the human controller to scope targets more easily. The team won the Excellence in Engineering award in 2015 and placed highly in the Kansas City and St. Louis Regional competition.
Among Priory's extracurricular offerings is the art of calligraphy. The school has a Calligraphy Guild to which students may apply, and after demonstrating a certain level of proficiency, they may earn the title of "Master." Students can also learn the art of working with stained glass during their high school years.
Additionally, Priory hosts a student-led Sodality of Our Lady, a religious organization that fosters in its participants a closer personal and community relationship with the Blessed Virgin Mary. The Priory Sodality is dedicated in particular to Our Lady of Walsingham.
Priory serves as one of two St. Louis-area sites for AIM High, a program that offers an academic and personal enrichment program for motivated middle school students from high-risk environments. The program involves Priory faculty members, parents and students.
Sports
Priory is a member of the suburban Metro League, which was reconstituted out of the former ABC League. Priory students are required to participate in a sport each of the three seasons. In the fall, the school offers cross country, football, and soccer. In the winter, the school offers basketball, ice hockey, and wrestling. Students may choose to participate in the winter musical in order to fill their sports requirement. The ice hockey team is a club team that is not sponsored by the school or state. However, according to a rule change starting in the 2009-2010 school year, it now fulfills the sports requirement for the winter term. In the spring, the school offers golf, track and field, tennis, rugby, baseball, lacrosse, and ultimate frisbee. Although the school has racquetball and squash facilities, it does not field teams in these sports, nor does it have a swimming and diving team, as it once did.
In the winter of 2004, the hockey team received a bid to play in the Wickenheiser Cup, a memorial tournament hosted by the Mid-States Club Hockey Association league and named for the late St. Louis Blues Center Doug Wickenheiser. Priory won the championship game, played at the Scottrade Center, giving the school its first state sports title since 1973. In 2007, the hockey team won the Wickenheiser Cup for the second time.
In the fall of 2005, the Priory varsity soccer team became the first in this sport in Missouri's high school sports history, and the first since state titles were officially sanctioned by the Missouri State High School Activities Association, to compete for a full season with no losses or ties. The soccer Rebels led by All-American forward Jimmy Holmes ended the season with a perfect 26-0-0 record, winning the state Class 2 title. In November 2011, the soccer Rebels again produced a perfect season, finishing 27-0-0 and winning the Missouri State High School Class 2 championship with a 2-0 victory over Trinity High School. In so doing they became the only school in Missouri high school soccer history to twice post a perfect season, with no losses and no ties. The soccer Rebels' team record included 24 shutouts, and they outscored opponents 107-5.
In the spring of 2007, the Priory golf team won its first state title, winning by 27 shots. The final team score was 583.
A little over half a decade after establishing a lacrosse program, Priory's varsity lacrosse team won its first Missouri Scholastic Lacrosse Association state title in 2016 by defeating O'Fallon (Illinois) 7-6 in the double overtime Division II championship final.
Mascot
The school's sports mascot is the Rebels. "The Rebels" comes from the name of the school's first athletic team, the Rebel Ruggers. A version of the Confederate Johnny Rebel figure, then known as General Beauregard, was featured in the school's sports iconography. The school briefly flew a Confederate flag until it was removed due to controversy surrounding the symbolic meaning of the flag. During the U. S. Civil War, Missouri had a pro-Union government, Saint Louis was a predominantly Union city, and most Roman Catholics in Missouri during the Civil War were pro-Union, so school supporters thought the Confederate identification was inappropriate. The school has always said that the term "rebels" referred to the colonial rebels of the American Revolution. The students replaced the mascot of General Beauregard with a super-hero-style "Rebel Man".
Priory's varsity tennis team is known by the mascot name "The Kestrels," and the school annually awards a Kestrel Cup to the most promising ninth grade tennis player.
The school's jersey colors are red, white, and blue.
Recognition
Missouri State High School Athletic Association (MSHSAA) Titles:
Mid-States Club Hockey Association State Titles:
Missouri Scholastic Lacrosse Association (MSLA) State Title:
Academic State Titles