La Lumiere School

La Lumiere School
Address
6801 North Wilhelm Rd.
La Porte, Indiana
USA
Coordinates 41°42′29″N 86°42′50″W / 41.708019°N 86.713843°WCoordinates: 41°42′29″N 86°42′50″W / 41.708019°N 86.713843°W
Information
Type Private, Day & Boarding school
Motto Character, Scholarship, Faith
Religious affiliation(s) Roman Catholic
Established 1963
Headmaster Michael H. Kennedy '86
Grades 9-12
Gender Coeducational
Enrollment 200
Campus Rural
Color(s) Navy blue and Grey         
Mascot Lakers
Accreditation NCA
NAIS – ISACS
Newspaper The Torch
Yearbook Lamplighter
Website lalumiere.org

La Lumiere School is a Roman Catholic, private, college preparatory boarding and day school located in La Porte, Indiana, United States

About

La Lumiere School is an educational institution, begun in 1963, as a single-sex boarding and day school for boys. In 1978, girls of comparable age were admitted to the school. The present day school serves an internationally and culturally diverse, co-educational body of 95 boarders and a population of nearly 135 local day students. Recent facilities expansion has allowed a gradual growth of school population to its largest size since the founding of the school in 1963.

La Lumiere's Science Olympiad team has competed at the state level for the past eighteen years. School traditions include the senior run at the bonfire, an all-school speech contest, formal holiday dinners for faculty and students, two major drama productions, and the headmaster's swim after major gridiron victories. Athletic teams do not compete in a conference structure; the school maintains its independent status and competes regionally against a variety of other independent, parochial, and public schools.

La Lumiere School is accredited by and affiliated with several educational associations:

La Lumiere School receives accreditation from the:

History

In early 1963 a banker from Gary Indiana, Raymond E. Daly, gathered a group of friends and business associates to explore the establishment of a Catholic college preparatory high school somewhere in the Calumet region of Northwest Indiana.

The school, according to Daly and his associates, was envisioned to be an independent, Catholic day school for boys with a traditional liberal arts curriculum that included theology and religion.

In 1963, Daly purchased a 487-acre (1.97 km2) estate in northern La Porte, Indiana from Mrs. Edward Lalumier for $300,000. Lalumier, an executive with the Armour Meat Packing Company of Chicago, had acquired the land during the 1930s and he had built a lodge overlooking the northernmost lake. She had also built a large garage and servants' quarters behind the house.

James R. Moore was hired as Headmaster by Daly and his associates. In February, Daly flew to New Milford, Connecticut, to seek the advice of Walter Sheehan, the Frank Boyden-trained headmaster of Canterbury School, at that time the nation's only lay-Catholic boarding school. His visit included a meeting with Sheehan's assistant head, James R. Moore. Moore was subsequently flown to Chicago to meet with the founders and he was offered the position of headmaster. They decided to start the school only if Moore agreed to run it. He moved to La Porte with his wife and three children in the summer of 1963. The school opened in the fall of 1963.

Moore soon concluded that a day school was not feasible and so informed the Founding Board who decided to establish a boarding school, the La Lumiere School for Boys. The name chosen for the school is the French spelling of the name of the property's original owner, for it was hoped that Mrs. Lalumier would endow the school upon her death. She did not.

Beginning with a freshman class of 25 boys, one grade was added each year. Early faculty members' duties included teaching, coaching, and counseling.

Girls were first admitted to the school in 1978. The name was changed to La Lumiere School. The steady growth of the school was marked by a new gymnasium in January 1979, a new upperclassman dormitory, Linnen House, in January 1985, and a sizable addition to the existing classroom space to include science laboratories, a computer room, an art room, four additional classrooms, and a library in March 1986.

La Lumiere School celebrated its fourth consecutive year of record enrollment in 2010. It also completed construction of a new 5,200-square-foot (480 m2) Science Center, adding two classrooms, a Science Olympiad Training room and office space.

Notable alumni

References

External links