Lourdes High School (Rochester, Minnesota)
Encyclopedia
Lourdes High School is a Catholic high school located in Rochester, Minnesota
Rochester, Minnesota
Rochester is a city in the U.S. state of Minnesota and is the county seat of Olmsted County. Located on both banks of the Zumbro River, The city has a population of 106,769 according to the 2010 United States Census, making it Minnesota's third-largest city and the largest outside of the...

. It is a part of the Rochester Catholic School system http://www.rochestercatholic.k12.mn.us and is located in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Winona
Roman Catholic Diocese of Winona
The Diocese of Winona is the Roman Catholic diocese which ministers to the people of southern Minnesota. The diocese includes Blue Earth, Cottonwood, Dodge, Faribault, Fillmore, Freeborn, Houston, Jackson, Martin, Mower, Murray, Nobles, Olmsted, Pipestone, Rock, Steele, Wabasha, Waseca, Watonowan,...

.

Background

Lourdes High School (LHS) was initially for girls only and went coeducational in 1925 when nearby boys-only Heffron High School closed. When the school relocated to its present location on Center Street in 1941 it was renamed Lourdes High School.

Administration

Dennis L. Nigon, Principal of Lourdes High School from 1987–2007, became President of Rochester Catholic Schools in 2007. Mr. Nigon has 39 years of experience in Catholic high schools, and is in charge of the Lourdes Building Our Future project, to build a new facility for Lourdes High School.

Academic Performance

LHS uses modular scheduling, students usually having classes into 36-minutes class periods, with each class meeting about four of five days of the school week.

Lourdes High School has additional academic requirements beyond those commonly found at public high schools.

Lourdes students averaged a score of 26 on the ACT
ACT (examination)
The ACT is a standardized test for high school achievement and college admissions in the United States produced by ACT, Inc. It was first administered in November 1959 by Everett Franklin Lindquist as a competitor to the College Board's Scholastic Aptitude Test, now the SAT Reasoning Test...

 examination in the 2006-2007 academic year, meaning that the average Lourdes' student scored higher than 80% of national ACT takers.

The Eagle

The Eagle is the student run and edited online newsmagazine of Lourdes High School. Starting out as a newspaper in 1921 at LHS predecessor St. John's High School, the publication utilized a variety of print formats, turning into a newsmagazine in 2008, and an online publication in the fall of 2010. Throughout its long history, however, The Eagle has set a standard for high school journalism in regards to writing, editing, and artwork. It can be found here.

Math League

The Lourdes High School Math League in 2008 won first place in the Hiawatha Division, as well as attending the State Competition on March 12, 2007, taking second place in the Small Schools Division. LHS student, Patti Geisler, won first place of all high schools in the division for highest individual score. 6 of the top 10 students of all high schools in 2008 were from Lourdes high school. (Post Bulletin, page A4 Feb. 15, 2008)

Science Club

The science club was established around 2005. The club is made up of students dedicated to increasing their knowledge of science. In 2007 the club formed its second team to take to the Envirothon Competition. After taking second place in the regional competition, the team went on to the state tournament. In 2010, the team finished fourth in the regional competition by one point. That team was led by Taylor Nelson and Andrew Lose.

Chess Club

Lourdes also boasts the city's top ranked high school chess team after defeating local rival Century High School in the 2008 city championship while going on to finish 7th in the state competition.

Other Activities

Other activities include Latin Club, Drama, Student Council
Student council
Student council is a curricular or extra-curricular activity for students within elementary and secondary schools around the world. Present in most public and private K-12 school systems across the United States, Canada and Australia these bodies are alternatively entitled student council, student...

, Marching Band
Marching band
Marching band is a physical activity in which a group of instrumental musicians generally perform outdoors and incorporate some type of marching with their musical performance. Instrumentation typically includes brass, woodwinds, and percussion instruments...

, One Act Play
One act play
A one-act play is a play that has only one act, as distinct from plays that occur over several acts. One-act plays may consist of one or more scenes. In recent years the 10-minute play known as "flash drama" has emerged as a popular sub-genre of the one-act play, especially in writing competitions...

, Color Guard
Color guard
In the military of the United States and other militaries, the color guard carries the National Color and other flags appropriate to its position in the chain of command. Typically these include a unit flag and a departmental flag...

, Film Club, Yearbook
Yearbook
A yearbook, also known as an annual, is a book to record, highlight, and commemorate the past year of a school or a book published annually. Virtually all American, Australian and Canadian high schools, most colleges and many elementary and middle schools publish yearbooks...

, Speech Team, The Cultural Exchange Club, Key Club
Key Club
Key Club International is the oldest and largest service program for high school students. It is a student-led organization whose goal is to teach leadership through serving others. Key Club International is a part of the Kiwanis International family of service-leadership programs...

, Jazz Band, Rockinsania, Center Street Singers, WGI
Winter Guard International
Spawning from the organization Drum Corps International , Winter Guard International was founded in 1977. WGI is a visual performing arts organization that hosts regional and national competitions for color guard and indoor percussion ensembles. Contests are held in the U.S...

 Winter Drumline, Chess Club
Chess club
A chess club is a club formed for the purpose of playing the board game of chess. Chess clubs provide for both informal games and timed games, often as part of an internal competition or in a league.-Organisation:...

, Lego Robotics.

Football

In 2006 the Lourdes varsity football team advanced to the semi-finals of the state tournament. The current head coach is Mike Kesler. The first year of Kesler's coaching career was a 2-7 season. But every year since has been a successful winning season making the state tournament 3 straight years in 06, 07, and 08.

In November 2010, Rochester Lourdes won the Minnesota State Class 3A football title with a convincing 42-13 win over Holy Family. Lourdes finished the season undefeated.

Soccer

1997 was the first year that Lourdes had a boys soccer team.
The Lourdes boy soccer team won the Minnesota State Soccer Championship for Class A in 1998 and 1999. In 1995 Tom Kane, the current varsity
Varsity team
In the United States and Canada, varsity sports teams are the principal athletic teams representing a college, university, high school or other secondary school. Such teams compete against the principal athletic teams at other colleges/universities, or in the case of secondary schools, against...

coach for boys soccer at Lourdes, campaigned heavily for a school sanctioned team.

The 1998 Boys team (the first out-state Minnesota soccer team to win state) beat LaCresent (4-3), Mankato West (2-0) and Caledonia (2-0 section championship game) on their way to state. At state, Lourdes came back from a 2-0 deficit to win 3-2 against Benilde-St. Margaret's in overtime in the state quarterfinals. They then proceeded to beat Duluth Marshall 1-0 to claim the championship.

The 2006-2007 season found Lourdes falling to Benilde-St. Margaret's 2-5 in the semi finals and tying Totino-Grace 1-1 for third place.

External links

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