St. Mark's School of Texas
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| St. Mark's School of Texas | |
| Location | |
|---|---|
| Dallas, Texas, USA | |
| Information | |
| Headmaster | Arnold E. Holtberg |
| Students | 833 boys |
| Faculty | 125 |
| Type | Private, Non-sectarian |
| Campus | 40 acres |
| Motto | Excellence (Or, alternatively, Courage and Honor) |
| Mascot | Lion |
| Established | 1906 |
| Athletics | 17 sports |
| Homepage | www.smtexas.org |
The St. Mark's School of Texas is a nonsectarian preparatory day school for boys located in Dallas, Texas, USA. The school begins at first grade and continues through the senior year in high school.
Contents |
[edit] History
St. Mark's was created in 1950 by a group of Dallas businessmen. The original name was to have been St. James's, but St. James is associated with the lamb. St. Mark's was chosen because a lion was thought a more suitable mascot.
St. Mark's was developed out of three less-financed private schools: Terrill School (1906–44), Texas Country Day School (1933–50), and Cathedral School (1944–50). The school traces its history to Mr. Terrill's school, which he founded in 1906 as the city's first effort to create a private school that could rival its East Coast counterparts. The Hockaday School for Girls was founded in 1913; it became a "sister" school to St. Mark's.
[edit] The School Today
The school was historically fairly homogeneous and geared towards the sons of doctors, lawyers, and affluent businessmen. St. Mark's has made significant gains in terms of financial aid and minority recruitment. Approximately 18% of students are involved with the financial aid program at St. Mark's as of 2005-2006.
Neatly organized across its forty acres are an array of buildings, most of which are named after well-known Dallas families. Texas Instruments' co-founders Cecil H. Green and Eugene McDermott[1] donated the math and science quadrangle, the main library, the greenhouse, the planetarium and the observatory. After those gifts in the 1960's, Time magazine called St. Mark's the "best-equipped day school in the country."
In more recent years, The Roosevelt family contributed a carillon in early 2005, Ralph Rogers [2] provided the natatorium, the Lamar Hunt family donated a football stadium, completed in the fall of 2005, and Tom Hicks, the owner of MLB's Texas Rangers the NHL's Dallas Stars, and Liverpool FC, funded a new gymnasium. Its arts facilities are also impressive. Currently, the School is executing a large-scale building initiative known as the Centennial Project which will add two new academic buildings.
St. Mark's has long resisted efforts towards coeducation, though there are a half dozen courses that students can take with Hockaday students at the Hockaday campus.
The school has had a long tradition of outdoor activities throughout the middle and upper school, known as the Wilderness Program. Middle schoolers have a class camping trip every year. The Wilderness Program culminates in a 10-day backpacking trip in the Pecos Wilderness of New Mexico. This trip is undertaken at the end of the summer before the boys enter the 9th grade and is seen as a rite of passage as the boys enter the upper school. The trip is led by teachers, alumni, and current upper school students, known as sherpas.
The school's uniform has remained unchanged for decades: grey shorts or pants and white oxford shirts; seniors, though, wear blue shirts.
The school's mascot is the lion, the motto is "Excellence", and the official colors are navy blue and gold.
[edit] Academics
Its 833 students, frequently known as Marksmen, are spread across first through twelfth grade. Lower School classes average about 15 boys, and there is an overall student/faculty ratio of 8:1.
Eighty percent of the 125 faculty members have advanced degrees, while 25% have been at St. Mark's for more than twenty years. There are twelve endowed teaching positions, including nine endowed chairs.
St. Mark's offers 36 Upper School clubs and academic teams, a list of which can be found here. St. Mark's students have long been nationally prominent in policy debate. The school also hosts one of the biggest debate tournaments in the nation, the St. Mark's Heart of Texas Invitational.
The median SAT scores for the class of 2008 were critical reading, 680; math, 710; and writing, 670.[3].
The most commonly attended colleges by graduates between 1997 and 2007 were [4] University of Texas at Austin, Stanford University, Emory University, Vanderbilt University, Northwestern University, Southern Methodist University, Duke University, University of Pennsylvania, Harvard University, Texas A&M University, Princeton University, University of Southern California and Yale University.
[edit] Athletics
Extracurricular activities and sports are an integral part of campus life. Its sports teams compete against similarly sized private schools in the Southwest Preparatory Conference [5]. The School competes in 17 varsity sports: Football, Basketball, Soccer, Baseball, Lacrosse, Wrestling, Crew, Water Polo, Swimming, Cross Country, Track and Field, Golf, Tennis, Hockey, Volleyball, Cheerleading, and Fencing. Certain teams—such as swimming, wrestling, golf, and tennis—compete against the largest schools in the state. For example, the wrestling team annually sends athletes to compete at the national championships, and the longtime wrestling coach, Rick Ortega, was recently inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame. Other teams, such as crew, water polo, lacrosse, ice hockey, and fencing, are played at St. Mark's but are not widely followed within the state.
[edit] Awards and Honors
The Upper School newspaper The Remarker, literary magazine The Marque, and the yearbook win national awards nearly every year. For example, in both 2005 and 2006, St. Mark's was the only school in the country in which each of its three publications was a finalist for the Crown awards, given annually by Columbia University [6]; no other school has placed three finalists in one year for at least fifteen years. In 2006, all three St. Mark's publications won Gold Crowns. The Remarker has also won the prestigeous Pacemaker award.
The photography program, though only established during the 1990s, was named, in both 2007 and 2008, as the top high school photography program in the state of Texas by the ATPI (Association for Texas Photography Instructors). St. Marks students are often the winners of top photography honors at city, state, and national competitions.
Many of the other teams are similarly prominent in contests involving math, robotics, science, and languages.
[edit] Notable Alumni
- Richard Bass 1946. Owner, Snowbird Ski Resort. Mountain climber. [7]
- George Bayoud 1973. Real Estate Investor, Politician. [8]
- William Clarkson 1966. President, The Westminster Schools [9]
- Robert Decherd 1969. Chairman and CEO, Belo, a Dallas-based media conglomerate. [10]
- Robert M. Edsel 1975. Author, Rescuing Da Vinci. Co-producer, The Rape of Europa.
- Kurt Eichenwald 1979. Journalist. [11]
- Sai Gunturi 2007. 2003 National Spelling Bee champion
- Robert Hoffman 1965. Co-Founder, National Lampoon. Businessman. [12]
- David Hudgins 1983. Television writer and producer. [13]
- Clark Hunt 1983. CEO, Kansas City Chiefs. [14]
- Steve Jurvetson 1985. Venture Capitalist, Draper Fisher Jurvetson.
- Tommy Lee Jones 1965. Actor. [15]
- David Laney 1967. Chairman, Amtrak. [16]
- Michael R. Levy 1964. Founder and Publisher, Texas Monthly [17]
- Doug Mankoff 1981 Independent Film Producer [18]
- Rhett Miller 1989. Musician, Old 97's. [19]
- Steve Miller 1961. Musician. [20]
- H. Ross Perot, Jr. 1977. Executive Chairman, Perot Systems, Real Estate Developer. [21]
- Eric Miller Reeves 1982. Politician, Businessman [22]
- Boz Scaggs 1962. Musician. [23]
- Douglas St. Clair Smith, 1971 aka Ivan Stang . Minister and founder of the satirical Church of the SubGenius.[24]
- Alan Stern 1975, NASA Associate Administrator for Science Mission Directorate.
- Mark A. Stern 1977. Professor and Chair, Department of Mathematics, Duke University. [25]
- Jeffrey Swann, 1969, international concert pianist
- Kalen Thornton 2000. Linebacker, Dallas Cowboys. [26]
- Michael Weiss - Jazz pianist, composer. Attended 1st - 7th grade. [27]
- John J. West '79. Systems of Systems architect, defense and space; Chief Architect of the Army FCS Program.
- Luke Wilson 1990. Actor. [28]
- Owen Wilson 1987 (expelled) Actor.
- Craig Zisk 1983. Television Director.
- Randy Zisk 1977. Television Director.
[edit] External links
- St. Mark's School of Texas website
- Admission Office
- Peterson's Guide to Private Schools
- St. Mark's Course Listing
| Southwest Preparatory Conference |
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All Saints Episcopal School - Casady School - Cistercian Preparatory School - Episcopal School of Dallas - Episcopal High School |
