You'll Never Walk Alone

Our Friends from Missouri

In 1963, Gerry and the Pacemakers sang You'll Never Walk Alone. Liverpool F.C. adopted the song title as their club's motto. I'm thinking the Catholic Diocese of Memphis needs to also adopt this motto. Maybe we can expand on it a little to make our motto With God, You'll Never Walk Alone.

The Catholic community of our diocese is a pretty tight knit group of people. I've been told that we make up only about 5% of the population in the Memphis area. I would have never guessed that because everywhere I go, I am surrounded by my Catholic brothers and sisters. Even though we make up such a small percentage of the population, we are never far from our Catholic family. In good times and bad, our Catholic community is there together supporting each other.

Carla Bray

After leaving school last Friday, I drove straight over to Memorial Park for Carla Bray's visitation. I met Carla many years ago through her husband Mark. Mark Bray was one of my mentor teachers at CBHS starting back in 1992. Kathleen, their daughter, is a teacher at Resurrection Catholic School. Carla's visitation was a bit of a CBHS and Resurrection reunion. The line of people there to pay their respects was all the way down the hall almost to the door by the time I left. No, Carla and the Bray Family will never walk alone. The Catholic community was there walking together.

On Saturday, we celebrated Mardi Gras in Memphis. It was a crawfish festival at Memphis Catholic celebrating the Jubilee Schools. St. Ann was out there celebrating with the Jubilee Schools. Not only were we out there celebrating with our Jubilee brothers and sisters, we had the biggest turnout of any school. In my short time at St. Ann, I've quickly come to understand to never underestimate what the great folks at St. Ann are capable of getting done.

The St. Ann tent had about 36 lbs of crawfish, 10 lbs of grill wings, 5  lbs of Missouri sausage, 10 lbs of pork steaks, Brazilian caipirinha, and 20+ people enjoying a great time. This is not including all the people who came by to sample our food. By the way, we took 2nd place in the gumbo cookoff! Do you think the St. Ann Fall Fest folks will let us grill some wings at the next fall fest? I had leftover wings for dinner tonight.


I did something new and different today. We had friends from Missouri in town this weekend to attend Mardi Gras in Memphis together. We decided to go to Mass this morning at the Poor Clare's Monastery with Fr. David Knight. Then we attended Mass at St. Michael with Fr. Ben Bradshaw. After my friends left to return to Jefferson City, MO, Kelley and I attended Mass at St. Ann with Fr. Ernie. Don't think that I have ever attended Mass three times in one day. I thoroughly enjoyed the day and might have to do it more often. I was truly with my Catholic brothers and sisters all weekend.

We have a Knowledge Bowl team at St. Ann. They practice several times per week and compete against other schools. Ryan Cooper is the Knowledge Bowl moderator. He informed me that they are in need of a new buzzer system. The one we currently have is about 20 years old and having some problems working properly. Using the buzzer system, each team player has their own light and hand held unit. It makes it possible to easily identify the team and player who buzzes in to answer a question. The system we need is a Quik Pro Deluxe Q614 for 2 teams of 6 players each. The cost is $618 plus $23 for shipping. If you can help us purchase this buzzer system for the Knowledge Bowl team, we greatly need your help. Please and thank you. Here's the link to the site. http://quikprosystems.com/buzzers1.htm

Thank you to:
Susan Garts for donating the 20 headphones we requested last week for the computer labs. The headphones are scheduled to arrive this week. Anna Slattery and the students will be very happy.

Carol Fister and Thomas Lewis for their gift that enabled us to make the school security camera system a reality.

Student Shoutout:

Cadence Orban, Isabella Stuart, and Eriel Wilkins just finished their volleyball tournament in Bowling Green Kentucky. They played in the Vette City Challenge for their Memphis Metro volleyball teams. Way to go girls! Looking forward to watching next year's St. Ann Volleyball Team compete.

Grace Odum is no ordinary dancer. On Saturday evening, she had a late
night of dancing for her solo for the first time this year. She won platinum for her solo and was invited to New York for a dance intensive with the Rockettes. This is a Rockettes dance camp she will be participating in. We are proud of you Grace!

Please continue to pray for our students and staff as we continue to grow and move forward.
Praise God, from who all blessing flow;
Praise Him, all creatures here below;
Praise Him above, ye heavenly host;
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen

God bless you,
Didier Aur, Principal
St. Ann Catholic School