Happenings At St. Martin’s Academy

Submitted Story

5 years ago

Submitted by Daniel Kerr

All hands on deck! As a busy and productive summer comes to a close, every staff member, friend with a hammer, and tradesman in Bourbon County has gathered for the final push to make our new campus ready for the start of school. On September 2nd, we’ll welcome around 30 exemplary young men across 9th, 10th and 11th grades for our second year. With a waiting list developing for each class, our challenge in the years to come will not be finding students, but rather building our campus at a rate commensurate with such strong demand. Deo gratias!

It promises to be an exciting year and we’re delighted to introduce you below to some wonderful men and women who will be joining our faculty as well as a couple of programs that exemplify our commitment to an education for boys that roots bold innovation in time-tested tradition.

Saint Martin, pray for us!

Duc in Altum,
Daniel Kerr, President
Patrick Whalen, Headmaster

The Last Homely House

We’re almost there! It has been an adventure since we first broke ground on Theotokos Hall and the hard work and persistence from our team and supporting community is about to pay off. Theotokos Hall, home and hearth to future generations of St. Martin’s students, is a structure built to endure the test of time and we cut no corners in making her worthy of honoring Our Lady.

For the latest updates with more pictures, check out our blog.

The Hall of Fire in Rivendell represents the place where tradition is passed on through story, where meaning is revealed, where language expresses itself in the making and interpretation of worlds. The ambience of fire, of a friendly hearth where all strangers are made welcome and find consolation, speaks of a place where humanity can take root and flourish, a true home – the “Last Homely House.” Here prose is subordinate to poetry, and poetry to song. – Stratford Caldecott, Beauty in the Word

New Faculty
We are very pleased to welcome some incredibly talented and good men and women to our humble assembly. We are now a faculty of 15. For pictures and full bios, please see our About Us section on our website.

Ginger McElwee, History Teacher and Librarian
Ryan Bauer, Math & Natural Sciences Teacher
Danielle Bauer, Secretary
Giorgio Navarini, House Father
Roger McCaffrey, House Father
Joshua Gieger, House Father
Jack Karleskint, Construction Trades Program Lead Instructor

Announcing our Construction Trades Program

Every Wednesday afternoon, our boys will join local legend and recently retired General Contractor Jack Karleskint for a 4-hour hands-on workshop in carpentry and construction. This Construction Trades Program is a nationally recognized 2-year certification and is administered through the Fort Scott Community College. The curriculum comes from Southeast Kansas commercial building stalwart, Crossland Construction.

We are grateful to Jack, FSCC and Crossland for making such a valuable program possible for our boys!

Read more about how this program integrates with our curriculum at St. Martin’s.

Bon Voyages Les Garcons!

On September 7th our Juniors will embark on an 9-week journey across France, Spain and Italy. Curated and led by St. Martin’s Senior Faculty members and House Father Josh Mincio, our study abroad program will bring our students into direct contact with the physical reality that was Christendom and offer once-in-a-lifetime opportunities to experience the cultural roots of Western Civilization.

A rough sketch of our itinerary:
Weeks 1, 2 & 3 – Afoot in France: Paris, Chartres, Tours, Normandy Beach, Mont St. Michel, the Vendee and Chavagnes International School
Weeks 4 & 5 – Spiritual Retreat at the Benedictine Abbey of Fontgombault
Weeks 6 & 7 – Camino de Santiago Pilgrimage
Weeks 8 & 9 – The Eternal City

Down on the Farm

St. Martin’s Farms is readying for our second year as a diversified operation that includes pastured hogs, dairy cattle, katahdin sheep, meat chickens, egg-laying chickens, geese and rabbits. This year in particular we will be ramping up our dairy and egg-laying operation. We added three beautiful Jersey cows to our existing herd of three and all six are due to calve in September and October! We expect an abundance of fresh milk out of the dairy barn and should collect between 70 and 80 eggs a day from the layers. Bolstering these two areas will go a long way towards providing critical healthy fats and proteins to the boys’ diet.

Read more about why we farm at St. Martins.

Above: Rising Junior Israel Meyers refining his hand-milking technique on Molly the Jersey Cow

Join the Cause!

St. Martin’s is changing the landscape in secondary education and disrupting an ineffective and unimaginative status quo. Please consider giving generously to our Raise the Rafters Campaign with a one-time gift or pledge. No gift is too small (or too large!) and will be stewarded carefully as we build a campus for generations to come.

I teach in a charter school in Texas, and I see daily the effects on children of sitting in a desk for 8 hours and then playing video games after school. This model produces passive, pusillanimous boys whose goals are avoiding work, gaming, and inventing cool-sounding excuses for their failures. Absorbed in the world of technology, they miss both the supernatural and the natural worlds which surround them.

I am deeply grateful to Dan Kerr and Patrick Whalen, along with all the teachers and staff of St. Martin’s, for creating an environment in which boys can truly thrive and grow to become the men that God wants them to be. The trajectory of my son’s life, and those of countless other boys, has been changed permanently by your work.

– Meg Jones, mother of Nate (’22)