Page 3 - Priorities #37 2007-April

From the Head of School
During the past few months we
have had the pleasure of welcoming two Benedictine monks to the Priory. Father Jerome Tupa from Saint John’s College in Collegeville Minnesota
was on campus to give the annual Faculty/Staff Retreat. On the Feast of Saint Benedict, Father Stanley Jaki, one of the Priory’s ‘Founding Fathers,’ now at Princeton, was the presenter at our
yearly Community Forum lecture series sponsored by the Board of Trustees. His talk was titled Fifty Years of Learning and he reflected on his journey of learning since leaving the Priory over 40 years ago.
Our annual auction is May 5 and the theme is, fittingly, Cinco de Mayo. Priory volunteers pour untold time and imagination into creating a wonderful evening for their guests. The auction items get better every year, and you can take home something truly special while also providing financial support the school relies upon—it’s a win/win! I am looking forward to this great fiesta, and I hope I can greet you there in person.
Our Fiftieth Anniversary year begins next fall (2007- 2008) and the Golden Jubilee steering committee
has wonderful plans that permit everyone to share
in this milestone. You will be receiving a mailing
this summer with a calendar and details. You can begin right now by visiting our online bookstore
and purchasing Father Egon’s memoirs, Beginnings: The Founding of Woodside Priory, a charming, fascinating personal story that has captured everyone who saw the manuscript. The Priory’s beautifully produced community cookbook, which includes both recipes and history, is also available. Go to the school website, www.woodsidepriory.com, and look under “Quicklinks” on the home page. Or email Pat Reed, preed@woodsidepriory.com and she will send the link.
On behalf of our Monastic Community may this Easter season bring peace to your heart and soul.
Athletics, arts, scholarship, giving, serious times and fun times are part of the balanced life that makes a Benedictine community thrive.
Dear Priory Community,
As I write this, we are in the
midst of our own Priory March
Madness. Our student government
has planned a week of special
activities and dress days, and every
day at break I hear and see classes
competing in hockey games, trivia
contests and 3-on-3 basketball.
We have been dressed as nerds, Eighties fashion trendsetters, superheroes, and more. At the end of the week we will crown a March Madness winner. The next week is a serious one with Easter Mass in preparation for Holy Week and the end of Lent.
During our school year we often see this balance
of activities which allow the talents and gifts of our students to shine in various ways. This seems to me to highlight what Benedictine education is about.
The Priory’s Performing Arts Department just completed a two-week run of the musical Les Miserables. More than 50 middle and high school students were involved in this major production as actors/singers and tech crew. It is the last all-school play to be held in the Assembly Hall; next year the Performing Arts Department will be located in our new, more spacious, state-of-the-art performing arts auditorium and classrooms. This is the realization of a dream shared by many people over the last several years—and in Father Martin’s case, several decades!
The winter high school sports season took Priory spirit to an all-time apex. Our girls soccer team won the school’s first league championship in this sport, and they took the top seed in Central Coast Sectionals Santa Cruz to four overtimes before losing 5-4. They are an amazing group of young women who work hard and do not back down from any challenge. Our boys’ basketball team won a record 26 games, went undefeated in league play and reached the second round of NorCals before losing to Modesto Christian. The best parts for me were seeing many alumni at home and away games, and seeing our team end Sacred Heart’s 78- game basketball league win streak last January.
Tim Molak Head of School
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