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St. Mark's School of Texas

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St. Mark's School of Texas
Location
Map
Dallas
,
Texas

United States
Coordinates32°53′25″N 96°48′03″W / 32.890363°N 96.800762°W / 32.890363; -96.800762
Information
TypePrivate, Non-sectarian
MottoCourage and Honor
Established1906
HeadmasterArnold E. Holtberg
Faculty125
Number of students845
Campus40 acres (160,000 m2)
MascotLions
Athletics17 sports
Websitewww.smtexas.org

The St. Mark's School of Texas is a nonsectarian preparatory day school for boys located in Dallas, Texas, USA. The School offers grades 1–12.

History

St. Mark's developed from three preceding private schools: The Terrill School (1906–1944), Texas Country Day School (1933–1950), and The Cathedral School (1944–1950). The school traces its earliest history to Mr. Terrill's school, which is considered the city's first effort to create a private school that could rival its East Coast counterparts. The Terrill School served as a base for the foundation of The Cathedral School, which then merged with Texas Country Day.

Founded from the combination of the nonsectarian Texas Country Day School and the Episcopally-associated The Cathedral School, the St. Mark's founders decided to make the school nonsectarian, with nondenominational Chapel services led by an ordained Episcopalian Chaplain. The school officially opened as St. Mark's School of Texas in 1953. The Hockaday School for Girls, founded in 1913, became the sister school to St. Mark's.

The School Today

Historically, the school was fairly homogeneous and geared towards the sons of doctors, lawyers, and affluent businessmen. St. Mark's has since made significant changes in terms of financial aid and minority recruitment, and approximately 50% of students are now involved with the financial aid program.

On its 40 acre-campus is an array of buildings, most of which are named after well-known Dallas families. Texas Instruments' co-founders Cecil H. Green and Eugene McDermott donated a math and science quadrangle, the main library, the greenhouse, the planetarium and the observatory.[1] Shortly after those buildings' completion in the 1960s, Time magazine called St. Mark's the "best-equipped day school in the country."[volume & issue needed]

In more recent years, the Roosevelt family contributed a carillon, installed in early 2005. The natatorium was named in honor of Ralph Rogers;[2] the Lamar Hunt family donated a football stadium, completed in the fall of 2005, and Tom Hicks funded a new gymnasium. Its arts facilities are also impressive. In 2007-08, the School executed the large-scale Centennial Project. Initiating funding was a $10 million donation from the family of Harlan Crow.[3] The products of the Project were two new state-of-the-art academic buildings: Centennial Hall, housing the Math, English, History, and Administrative Departments; and the Robert K. Hoffman '65 Center, housing the Language, Debate, Journalism, and College Counseling programs, in addition to the Student Store and Senior Lounge. The new buildings opened in June 2008.[4]

Large donations have spearheaded much of this construction and enhancement of financial aid, but support is actively solicited from throughout the school's community. For example, in 2010-2011, donations were received from 87% of parents and 56% of all alumni; the percentage of alumni contributing was the highest percentage for any secondary school in the country.

St. Mark's has long resisted efforts towards coeducation, though there are several courses that students can take with Hockaday students at that campus. The school has a long tradition of outdoor activities throughout the Middle and Upper Schools, known as the Wilderness Program. Each Middle School class has a camping trip every year. The Wilderness Program culminates in a 10-day backpacking trip in the Pecos Wilderness of New Mexico. The trip occurs in early-mid August before boys enter the 9th grade and is considered a "rite of passage" into the Upper School. Faculty, alumni, and current Upper School students, known as sherpas, lead the trip in small groups. The school's uniform has remained unchanged for decades: gray shorts or pants with white oxford shirts for grades 1–11 (blue oxford shirts for seniors).

Academics

Its 849 students are spread across first through twelfth grade, and the overall student/faculty ratio is 8:1. 80 percent of the 125 faculty members have master's or doctoral degrees, and 25% have been at St. Mark's for more than twenty years. There are twelve endowed teaching positions, including nine endowed chairs.

Among the 82 graduates in 2011, 22 were National Merit Semi-Finalists, and 35 others were Commended Students. Over the past 5 years, St. Mark's has had a higher percentage of seniors being named Semi-Finalists (28.4%) than any school in the Dallas-Ft. Worth region. [5] The median SAT for seniors in 2011 was 2130 on a 2400 point scale.

From the class of 2012, 11 of the 90 graduates will attend an Ivy League college. Between 2007 and 2011, about 450 students graduated, and ten or more students matriculated at each of the following schools: Dartmouth, Duke, Harvard, Northwestern, Penn, Princeton, SMU, Southern California, Stanford, University of Texas at Austin, Vanderbilt, and Washington University in St. Louis.

Seven seniors have been named Presidential Scholars in the past decade (2003-2012). The Presidential Scholars Program is sponsored by the White House and is perhaps the most competitive academic honor for a high school student. The selection process leads to two Presidential Scholars from each state or region as well as 15 at-large scholars and 20 students chosen for their artistic skills. These 141 students per year are chosen from the approximately 3 million graduating seniors.[6].

Athletics

St. Mark's organizes 17 varsity sports teams that compete against similarly-sized private schools in the Southwest Preparatory Conference.[7]

Most St. Mark's teams have won recent conference championships, but several have been historically dominant within the 18-team SPC. For example, in 2012, Wrestling won its 15th consecutive conference title. In addition, its long-time coach, Rick Ortega--who himself is in the national wrestling Hall of Fame--has now led 13 St. Marks wrestling teams to state championships (for both public and private schools) and coached 67 individual state champions and 62 prep All-Americans [8]. Similar success has been had by Swimming led by coach Mihai Oprea, which won its 16th conference title in 17 years in 2012. [9]. Track and Field won its 9th consecutive SPC championship in 2012 [10]. St. Mark's has also done well in several sports that are not widely followed in Texas: Lacrosse lost 5-4 in the 2012 state finals to Highland Park High School, thereby finishing among the top 4 in the state for the 5th consecutive year. Crew won state championships in 2011 and a second in 2012. Water polo also finished among the top 4 in the state for the 4th consecutive year.

Overall, through the 2010-11 school year, St. Mark's has won 10 consecutive SPC Director's Cups, a quantitative measure of overall yearly athletic success within the conference.

One reason for the strong team success is the presence of numerous individual athletes who then succeed at the next level. For example, Sam Acho '07 was the state private school champion in both the shot put and discus and also starred in football. Acho is currently the starting outside linebacker for the NFL's Arizona Cardinals after having been team MVP for the Texas Longhorns football team and winner of the 2010 Campbell Award for the top student athlete in college football. Sam's brother, Emmanuel Acho '08, also excelled at multiple sports at St. Mark's prior to starring in football at Texas, where he was first-team all conference in 2011, first team academic All Conference in 2009, 2010, and 2011, and the winner of multiple awards related to community service including the 2010 Arthur Ashe Award. The Cleveland Browns selected Acho in the sixth round of the 2012 NFL Draft. [11] [12] [13] Kalen Thornton '00 also starred in multiple sports at St. Mark's prior to playing football for Texas and then for the Dallas Cowboys, for whom his father also played. Thornton retired from the NFL because of injuries and is now a student at Stanford Business School. Ben Grisz '08 was a three-time prep all-American wrestler at St. Mark's who also excelled at baseball. He went on to play baseball for Duke, graduating a year early, and signed on to play professional baseball (as of early 2012, he was playing for the Auburn Doubledays, an affiliate of the Washington Nationals).

From the 2012 class, 7 seniors signed to play intercollegiate athletics; their sports include water polo (Caltech), golf (Houston Baptist), football (Colgate), lacrosse (Michigan), football (Georgia), lacrosse (Colgate), and basketball (Miami). Seven seniors also signed to play intercollegiate sports in 2011, including football and track (Penn), lacrosse (Bates), track (Columbia), rowing (MIT), swimming (Bates), football (Stanford), and water polo (the U.S. Naval Academy). From this group of 2011 graduates, Ty Montgomery had perhaps the most successful freshman season, catching 24 passes and returning 27 kickoffs for Stanford's nationally-ranked football team after having been All SPC in basketball and football and the SPC champion in both the 100 and 200 meter dashes.


See also

Extracurricular activities

St. Mark's offers 42 Upper School clubs and academic teams for the 80 to 90 boys per graduating class.[14] This extracurricular activity has led to significant external recognition.

For example, both the school newspaper, The ReMarker, and the yearbook, the Marksmen, won 2012 Gold Crowns, the highest award given by the Columbia Scholastic Press Association.[15] This past year, 11 school newspapers and 22 yearbooks earned this recognition from among 1700 entries from around the country. For The ReMarker, it was the ninth consecutive Gold Crown, lengthening its record for consecutive Gold Crowns won by a high school newspaper. The Marksmen won its fifth Gold Crown in six years. The school literary magazine, The Marque, also won a Silver Crown in 2012 after last winning a Gold Crown in 2007.[16]

The debate team won a national championship in 1990, finished runner-up in 1987, 1992, 2002, and 2010, and has generally been ranked among the top ten in the country over the past 30 years. The school itself annually hosts one of the most prestigious high school debate tournaments in the country: The Heart of Texas Invitational.

The school's photography program has been named best in state by the Association of Texas Photography Instructors for six consecutive years (2007–2012).[17] At the 2012 competition, team members also won individual first place awards for still life, portrait, and the thematic category (the latter entry won using an iPhone). A student also won second prize in the architecture category.

The St. Mark's Robotics team has won 2 of the last 3 state championships for autonomous robots.

The 4th grade "Wordmaster" team won a national title in 2011, competing against 694 teams from around the country.

As a Middle Schooler, Sai Gunturi '07 won the 2003 Scripps National Spelling Bee.

The Middle School math team finished first in State in 2008, 2009, and 2010.

A sophomore and a freshman qualified in 2012 for the U.S. Junior Math Olympiad, a 2-day, 4.5 hour test open to sophomores and below. Via qualifying exams, they were two of only 250 students in the country invited to compete in the finals.

The Upper School "Whiz Kid" team won the North Texas championships in 2009, 2010, and 2011. In 2012, it also finished second in the state.

While many SM students annually become Eagle scouts, one student earned his 17th Eagle Palm in 2012. That achievement has been attained by fewer than 2 dozen boys in the hundred-year history of the Boy Scouts,

15 boys were named to the 2011 All State Orchestra (and 4 others to All State Band) by the Texas Private School Music Educators Association. 11 girls from Hockaday were also named, so that--combined--the two schools comprised over 40% of the entire orchestra. [18]

Steve Miller(who graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School) and Boz Scaggs are probably the most famous alumni musicians; while in high school, they created a band called The Marksmen. The founder of Texas Monthly and a co-founder of the National Lampoon both attended St. Mark's. Prominent alumni actors include Tommy Lee Jones, who played football at both St. Mark's and Harvard, and Luke Wilson, who set the school record for the 800 meter run (1:54.99). Robin Lynn Macy was one of the four original Dixie Chicks while she was also teaching mathematics at St. Mark's in the 1980's.

The avidity with which students pursue extracurricular activities is mocked in the film Rushmore, which was co-written by another St. Mark's alumnus, Owen Wilson, set at a fictional cross between St. Mark's and a rival high school in Houston, St. John's School, and filmed on the campus of another Houston rival, the Kinkaid School; the film features a protagonist who participates in dozens of clubs and activities.

The local press has long written about ways in which St. Mark's blends in and differs from the rest of Dallas [19].

Notable alumni

References

  1. ^ Eugene McDermott biography, Missouri Southern State University
  2. ^ Rogers donation article
  3. ^ [1]
  4. ^ St. Mark's planned development
  5. ^ [2]
  6. ^ [3]
  7. ^ SPC Sports
  8. ^ [4]
  9. ^ [5]
  10. ^ [6]
  11. ^ [http://www.nfl.com/draft/2012/tracker#dt-tabs:dt-by-team/dt-by-team-input:cle
  12. ^ [7]
  13. ^ Vertuno, Jim. "Acho brothers hit big time, boost D at No. 2 Texas", The Monitor, Associated Press, 9 September 2009.
  14. ^ List of clubs at St. Mark's
  15. ^ [8]
  16. ^ [http://www.columbia.edu/cu/cspa/docs/contests-and-critiques/crown-awards/recipients/2012-scholastic-crown.html#N100B2
  17. ^ [9]
  18. ^ [10]
  19. ^ [11]
  20. ^ a b Steve Miller did not actually graduate from St. Marks' the school gave him an honorary diploma./story?oid=oid%3A107855 "Texas Top 40", Austin Chronicle, 8 November 2002.
  21. ^ Lieber, Dave (C'79). "Don’t Mess with Texas Monthly." University of Pennsylvania Gazette. Accessed October 11, 2008.
  22. ^ Kennedy, Randy. Obituary of Robert Hoffman, The New York Times, 22 August 2006.
  23. ^ Biography page for Tommy Lee Jones at the Internet Movie Database
  24. ^ "Young Pianist to Present Recital at SMU Wednesday." The Dallas Morning News, 15 May 1966. Retrieved 2010-07-11.
  25. ^ [12]
  26. ^ "Another Time, Another Ross Perot", Business Week, 18 February 2002.
  27. ^ [13]
  28. ^ Michael Weiss's website
  29. ^ "Reporter Biography: Kurt Eichenwald". The New York Times. Accessed October 11, 2008.
  30. ^ "Clark Hunt, Chairman of the Board, Kansas City Chiefs". Kansas City Chiefs website. Accessed October 11, 2008.
  31. ^ {http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0957197/}
  32. ^ "Dallas Solo's Practice Helps Him Perfect His Music Label." Texas Lawyer. October 20, 2005.
  33. ^ AskMen.com - Owen Wilson
  34. ^ Luke Wilson biography at his official website
  35. ^ [http://www.sptimes.com/2005/10/30/Rays/The_Rays__hottest_pro.shtml
  36. ^ [14]

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