SMA Now: Online News
March 14, 2008
Reminder:
Coffee with Deirdre Cryor:
March 17, April 14, and May 12
Get ready for HONK!
HONK! a rollicking version of Hans Christian Anderson’s beloved classic The Ugly Duckling brimming with fowl, frogs, barnyard critters, and a sly ol’ cat, all guaranteed to charm audiences of all ages. 
April, 17, 18, and 19 at 7:00 p.m. and a 2:00 p.m. matinee on April 19.
Performances will be in the Forum.
Tickets at $6.00 and may be purchased from cast members and at the door.
Hello from Academy Parents
Please mark you calendars as we have some fun and exciting events coming up!
*Spirit Day will be Monday, April 14! Join us for a light picnic after school and come cheer on the SMA Wildcats!
*On Wednesday, April 16, Chris Best will be speaking to Lower School parents.. Her topic relates to reading, such as encouraging children to read and helping them select books.
The event will take place at 6:30 p.m. at the Halvorsen’s home. Please RSVP to kbcejones@comcast.net if you will be coming to this event.
*On Tuesday, April 22, Lynn Price will be speaking to parents at the Academy Parents General Meeting. We are greatly honored to have Lynn and I hope you all will be able to be inspired by Lynn’s fantastic story! We will also be voting on our slate for the following year. The meeting will be held in the Choral Room at 8:00 a.m. Breakfast will be served.
*Finally, thank you to everyone who made the first meeting of the book club such a success. Our next book will be Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin. The discussion is scheduled for April 30 at 8:00 a.m. in the Sanders Board Room
Thank you again to all our wonderful volunteers. Have a safe and fun Spring Break.
Kim Jones
Academy Parents President
Stations of the Cross Help Students Reflect on Religion and Life
The stations of the cross are one of the oldest devotions in the Catholic church. There are many ways of praying and reflecting on the stations. The stations follow Jesus’s life from the time he is condemned to death through his death and burial.
In observance of Lent, the students in Kay Medvig’s Grade 6 religion class are putting together individual booklets that include drawings of each of the 14 stations of the cross and corresponding examples from their own life that help the students understand the importance of each station. For example, the first station commemorates Jesus being condemned to death. Students might describe a situation in which they have bullied, belittled or made fun of other kids. For the sixth station when Jesus accepts the cross he will carry to Calvary, a modern interpretation might focus on the burdens in life that students find hard to accept.
Studying the stations of the cross and reflecting on how each station directly relates to situations in all of our lives reminds SMA students that their continuing understanding and strengthening of their faith will be a well that they can draw from for a lifetime.
Honor Societies Induct New Members
The High School’s six honor societies inducted new members at a recent assembly attended by parents and SMA students. Students are selected for membership based on exemplary scholarship, service, leadership, and character.
The National Honor Society inducted 26 new members, French Honor Society inducted 10, Spanish Honor Society inducted 14, Tri-M Music Honor Society inducted 15, Thespian Honor Society inducted 8 and Art Honor Society inducted 17. The SMA chapters are part of a national network of honor societies.
Congratulations to these new honor society members!
Holocaust Survivor Shares Her Story
Mrs. Starr presented us with a raw and emotional glimpse of life during the Holocaust. The horrors that those under the persecution of Nazi Germany faced seem unimaginable today. Mrs. Starr had an overarching message of hope that the world will never again see such a tragedy. I will never forget her inspiring story,” wrote Crystal after Mrs. Fanny Starr visited World Visions class.
For more than ten years, SMA students have had the privilege of listening to Mrs. Starr talk about her experience of being a young Jewish girl sent to a concentration camp at age 14. She and her husband often spoke in the Middle School and for the past eight years in High School religion classes. Her husband died six years ago, so Mrs. Starr keeps alive his story as well as her own.
Raised in Poland, Mrs. Starr spent six years in several different camps, and while she survived, her parents, older sister and brother and 80 members of her extended family did not. When Mrs. Starr recently visited the World Visions class, she showed a video of a concentration camp being liberated that was filmed by Alfred Hitchcock when he served in the military. “It was overwhelming and surprising to the students to realize that when Mrs. Starr was in the camp, she was as malnourished and sick as the people in the video, and yet she was able to regain her physical and emotional strength after all she had been through,” said teacher Debbie Horning.
“Mrs. Starr made the Holocaust real instead of a piece of history you read about in textbooks, “ said Morgan. “I will never forget the atrocities after hearing a first-hand account.
Mrs. Starr’s yearly visit to SMA “opened my eyes to the horrors that occurred during the Holocaust. I always had an understanding of what had happened, but having someone personally tell her story made it feel real and it touched me on a deeper level,” wrote Ellie.
Mrs. Starr is an inspiration to SMA students. Said a student, “Her liveliness and heart, after all she has been through, astonished me and gave me hope for the future.”
St. Mary’s Academy Cruise Getting Ready to Set Sail!
The 2008 Gala Steering Committee is hard at work getting everything ready for the big event on April 25! For the first time ever, we will be having an online auction from April 1-15. The online auction will feature front row seats for this year’s all-Academy Musical, HONK!, and tickets to the Gala After-Party at the Hotel Teatro. Stay tuned to learn about the other items that
will be featured during this exciting opportunity!
Auction items have begun to appear on the third floor of the Sanders House! We have teacher outings, a Chicago Bears dream basket, sports memorabilia, tickets to sporting events, certificates for ACT/SAT prep course and driving lessons, restaurant gift certificates, and much more!
Don’t miss an opportunity to participate in this year’s event! Auction donations are due by April 2 to ensure inclusion in this year’s event program. Auction donation forms can be found in all three schools and in the Sanders House lobby. Sponsorship opportunities are also still available. It’s a great way to introduce your business to the SMA community and get some great publicity!
There are still lots of ways to get involved! We will need lots of hands on the day of the event and the night itself. For more information, please feel free to contact;
Anna Modic, Events/Annual Fund Coordinator
303-762-8300 ext. 282 or anna_modic@smanet.org
For more information on event sponsorship or for another auction donation form, please clickon these links: auction donations, sponsorship opportunities, sponsorships/ads.
MS Applauds CSO Maestro Visit
Imagine… clear blue sky, warm sunshine pouring in through the large windows of the Commons and the faces of Middle School students listening intently to beautiful piano music being played by a world renowned symphony conductor…a perfect March afternoon at St. Mary’s Academy’s Middle School.
Thanks to the ongoing partnership initiative between SMA and the Colorado Symphony Orchestra, Associate CSO Conductor Scott O’Neill put on a mesmerizing presentation for SMA Middle School Students on Monday, March 10.
Maestro O’Neill began his presentation by introducing and playing “The Cathedral” by Claude DeBussy. The Maestro explained that the music is based on a legend about a beautiful cathedral that is cursed, so it must stay under water in the ocean. Each day at sunrise, the cathedral rises out of the sea with hope that the sound of its glorious music will allow it to redeem itself and remain above the water. After Maestro O’Neill finished playing, he asked the students if they heard specific details in the music like the sound of the bells under water, the crescendo at which the cathedral rises out of the water, the sounds of the waves, or, at the end, the sound of echoes as the cathedral sinks back into the sea.
The point Maestro O’Neill made to the students is that many times we don’t see the hidden beauty in art or music when we see or hear it for the first time. When we look or listen more closely, however, we often see and hear subtleties or hidden beauty that we did not notice the first time. He reminded the students that this concept applies to all the areas in their lives.
In addition to “The Cathedral.” Maestro O’Neill played some of his other favorite musical pieces including Sergei Rachmaninoff’s “Prelude in G Minor” and he answered audience questions about his career and how he became interested in music. Maestro O’Neill encouraged the students to pursue their own study of art and music and said that “Art teaches us that all of the beauty that you need in your life is with you all of the time.” Inspiring words from a truly inspirational musician.
Bravo!
Look Out for the Marshmallows! 
by Judy Johnson, Primary Teacher
The primary students recently completed a science unit on simple machines. They learned about levers, pulleys, wheels and axels, wedges, screws, and inclined planes. They even experimented with an ancient machine called an Archimedes screw that was invented by Archimedes to raise grain from deep pits in the ground. As a culminating activity, the students launched mini marshmallows from catapults. The kids had lots of fun trying to hit targets with their marshmallows, but even more fun trying to catch the marshmallows in their mouths! Who knew machines could be so much fun?
LS and MS Scientists Team Up
Deb Kasberg’s Grade 4 science students were recently invited to the MS to observe plant and animal cells under the microscopes with JoAnn Cencula’s Grade 7 students. Together, they prepared slides of onion plant cells, and then they looked at human heart cells that were magnified 1000 times!
For the Grade 7 students, the opportunity to teach others was a great way to reinforce their own learning. The Grade 4 students were excited to learn more about plant and animal cells and microscopes!
