Stella Maris College (Montevideo)

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Christian Brothers - Stella Maris College

Motto	"Ad Astra" (Up To The Stars)
Established	1955
Type	Private co-educational school
Affiliations	Roman Catholic, Christian Brothers, International Baccalaureate Organization
Headmaster	Juan Pedro Toni
Founder	Edmund Ignacius Rice (Christian Brothers)
Grades	K-12
Location	Montevideo, Montevideo, Uruguay
Campus	Carrasco
Colours	White, Green, Blue
Website	www.stellamaris.edu.uy

The Stella Maris College of Montevideo, commonly referred as Christian Brothers College – Stella Maris or just Christian, is a private, co-educational, not-for-profit catholic school run by the Christian Brothers of Ireland. The school, located in the fancy residential neighborhood of Carrasco (Montevideo, Uruguay), is regarded as one of the best high schools in the country, blending a rigorous curriculum with strong extracurricular activities. The school's head master, history Professor Juan Pedro Toni, is a member of the Stella Maris Board of Governors and the school is a member of the International Baccalaureate Organization (IBO), currently offering the International Baccalaureate Diploma Program (IBDP). It has a very long list of distinguished former pupils, including economists, engineers, architects, lawyers, politicians and even F1 champions.

1 Location
2 The Andes Accident of 1972
3 Notable alumni
4 References
5 External links

[edit] Location

The school is located in the south-east neighborhood of Carrasco in Montevideo's metropolitan area.

[edit] The Andes Accident of 1972

Main article: Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571

The school gained accidental fame when its alumni rugby team flew on Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 which crashed into the Andes mountains on October 13, 1972. The story of the crash and rescue was first told in the 1974 book Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors and more recently in the 2006 book Miracle in the Andes: 72 Days on the Mountain and My Long Trek Home. The school also appeared in the documentary, Alive: 20 Years Later.

On Friday 13th October of 1972, an Uruguayan plane, which was carrying 45 passengers to Chile, most of whom were students and rugby players, crashed in the Andes Mountains.

Twelve of the people died in the crash. The survivors not only had to withstand the hunger and the fearful Mountains, but also 30 degree-below-zero temperatures during the night.

They tried to survive with the scarce food reserves they had until being rescued, but they lost their hope when heard that the search had ceased on the radio. Desperate owing to the lack of food and physically exhausted, they were forced to feed themselves on their death partners to keep on living. Finally fed up with the extremely low temperatures and the avalanche threats, as well as anguished by the continuos deaths of their partners and the bad rescue prospects, two of them decided to cross the huge mountains to reach Chile.

On 22nd December 1972, after being isolated for 72 days, the World found out and knew there were 16 survivors that beat Death in the Andes mountains.^[1]