Mary Institute and St. Louis Country Day School

Mary Institute and St. Louis Country Day School
File:Mary Institute and Saint Louis Country Day School Shield 1.svg
Address
101 North Warson Road Ladue , (St. Louis County) , Missouri 63124 United States
Information
Type	Private
Established	1859-Mary Institute 1917-St. Louis Country Day School 1992-MICDS
Founder	William Greenleef Eliot
Head of school	Lisa Lyle
Faculty	171
Grades	JK - 12
Enrollment	approx. 1202 (total), 599 (9-12)
Campus	Suburban, 100 acres
Color(s)	Cardinal Red, Forest Green
Mascot	Ram
Rival	John Burroughs School
Website	http://www.micds.org

Mary Institute and St. Louis Country Day School or "MICDS" is a secular, co-educational, private school for about 1,200 students in grades JK-12, separated into three different sections: JK-4th grade (lower school), 5th-8th grade (middle school), and 9th-12th grade (upper school). Its 100 acres (404700 m²) campus is located in the St. Louis suburb of Ladue.

History

William Greenleaf Eliot, founder and chancellor of Washington University in St. Louis, established predecessor institutions to MICDS in the 1850s as part of the university. A boys' school, Smith Academy, was founded in 1854, and was later attended by Eliot's grandson, the future poet T. S. Eliot. A sister school for girls, Mary Institute, was founded in 1859 and was named for Eliot's late daughter Mary Rhodes Eliot, who had died at the young age of 17. In its early years, Mary Institute was located at three different locations in the City of St. Louis, the third of which was at the corner of Lake and Waterman, in the building that is now New City School.

Smith Academy closed in June 1917; most of its students transferred to a successor school, independent of a university, which opened that September in northwestern St. Louis County. Called Saint Louis Country Day School, it was set up along the lines prescribed by the Country Day School movement. Saint Louis Country Day's campus was in a bucolic environment reached by rail that seemed far from the urban grit of the old Smith Academy.

Mary Institute moved to its Ladue campus in 1931 and became independent of Washington University in 1949. By the 1950s, the tranquility of the Country Day campus was disrupted by the growth of the adjacent Lambert-Saint Louis International Airport. Saint Louis Country Day School built a new campus next to Mary Institute, sold its old land to the airport and moved to Ladue in 1958. Eliot's grandson, Nobel laureate T. S. Eliot, who attended Mary Institute's kindergarten and Smith Academy, spoke at Mary Institute's centennial in 1959.

Although various connections, including theatrical cooperation, had existed between Mary Institute and Saint Louis Country Day School for years, academic coordination between Mary Institute and Country Day began during the 1970s and culminated in the 1992 merger of the schools. Saint Louis Country Day headmaster John Johnson, who coordinated the merger, became head of the combined schools, reprising the role of William Greenleaf Eliot almost a century and a half earlier.

The school observed its sesquicentennial during a year-long celebration that ran from May 11, 2009 through May 11, 2010.

Athletics

The school has claimed 32 state championships and 41 district championships in the past decade.

MICDS has a standing athletic rivalry with the nearby John Burroughs School, who MICDS has beaten 28 out of the last 30 years in football. Both schools also maintain a cross-state rivalry with The Pembroke Hill School in Kansas City. MICDS observes its Homecoming on the weekend when all of the teams play Burroughs, there is a traditional bonfire and pep rally to inspire team spirit, part of Spirit week that includes in-school pep rallies, spirit day, where students can dress in any outfit; crazy or normal, that has the school's colors.

Academics....... none

Notable alumni

Business

• Morton May, Chairman, May Department Stores
• John McDonnell, Chairman, McDonnell-Douglas Corporation
• William F. Ruprecht, CEO, Sotheby's Auction House

Government and Politics

• John Danforth, U.S. Senator
• Thomas Eagleton, U.S. Senator
• Pete Wilson, U.S. Senator and Governor of California
• Samuel Pearson Goddard, Jr., Governor of Arizona
• William McChesney Martin, Jr., Federal Reserve Bank chairman
• Orrin W. Robinson, politician, when Smith Academy
• Henry F. Niedringhaus, politician, when Smith Academy
• Stephen C. Jones, lawyer and community contributor, Country Day

Sports and Entertainment

• Betty Grable (attended, did not graduate), actress and World War II pin-up girl
• Vincent Price, actor
• William DeWitt, Jr., Owner, St. Louis Cardinals
• Sterling K. Brown, actor
• Joe Buck, sports broadcaster
• Robby McGehee, 1999 Indianapolis 500 Rookie of the Year
• Graham Bensinger, Sports Broadcaster
• Jim Lee, Comic Book Artist
• Tom Ackerman Sports Broadcaster

Arts, Sciences, and Education

• Jim Lee, comic book artist, writer, and publisher. Founder and publisher of WildStorm
• William H. Danforth, MD, Chancellor, Washington University in Saint Louis
• Shepherd Mead, author, How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying
• Sara Teasdale, poet
• T. S. Eliot, poet and Nobel laureate, when Smith Academy
• Edmond La Beaume Cherbonnier, professor and scholar of religious studies
• Frederick Seidel, poet
• Louis Daniel Brodsky, poet
• Winston Churchill (novelist), author, attended CDS predecessor Smith Academy
• Irma S. Rombauer, author of Joy of Cooking
• Marion Rombauer, co-author of Joy of Cooking
• Sally Benson, author of Meet Me in St. Louis and Junior Miss
• Nick Reding, journalist and author of Methland: The Death and Life of an American Small Town
• Linda Wells, founder and editor-in-chief, Allure magazine; annual guest judge on the Bravo reality television series Shear Genius
• Peter Taylor, short-story writer and novelist

External links

• Mary Institute and St. Louis Country Day School