A new Catholic boys boarding school organization is transforming a brushy hillside just east of Lake Fort Scott into a campus.
Theotokos Hall is the first building being built at St. Martin’s Academy, on Indian Road, near Lake Fort Scott.
Completion of the hall is slated for late fall or early winter, Daniel Kerr, president of St. Martin’s Academy, said.
The original completion date was this month.
“School begins Sept. 4 and … we’ll spend the first eight- days on an outdoor expedition near Moab, Utah,” he said.
“In the meantime, we’ll bunk at the former Levine Mansion in Fort Scott, a massive Victorian beauty built in 1884 and a more than suitable Plan B to start the year,” he said in information provided to FortScott.Biz.
There will be a faculty of 12, with four “house fathers” living on campus with the boys to provide residential supervision, Kerr said.
“Enrollment has exceeded our every expectation as we have maxed out our first year capacity of 20 students and now have a growing waiting list. God is good!” Kerr said.
“We will have met personally with every student as part of the application process and can confidently say these are young men of exceptional character from wonderful families,” Kerr said.
“We’ll be welcoming students from Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, Colorado, Georgia, Kentucky, Illinois, Virginia, Maryland, South Carolina and California.”
The Moab, Utah trip will be led by Residential Dean, Travis Dziad in conjunction with COR Expeditions.
The group will canoe, rock-climb, and hike for the first days of the school year.
” We think this will be a great way for our new students to form friendships (the best anecdote to home-sickness) while setting the proper tone for a year in which God’s creation, not pop culture, is our frame of reference,” Kerr said.
