The last decade has not been an easy one for schools in Florida as tight competition and increasingly high standards have doomed many. This trend has particularly been particularly acute for Catholic schools, which have decreased from over 13,000 students in their mid-1960s peak to fewer than half that number today. But one Tampa Catholic school has found a way to survive and prosper since 1881 as the area’s oldest school and Florida’s second-oldest high school: Academy of the Holy Names.
Academy of the Holy Names was founded by the Sisters of the Holy Name of Jesus and Mary. While there are currently only a few Sisters serving at the Academy, I did find two Sisters and longtime employees: Sister Mariellen Blaser and Sister Mary Patricia Plumb, as well as Campus Minister Katie Solomon Holland, to give me a tour of the school (though I do have some familiarity — I graduated from this school in the 90s). The Academy has a display/museum (funded by prominent alum and restauranteur Richard Gonzmart and other past graduates) showcasing the school's history (and some other schools the Sisters have been linked to, like St. Peter Claver, Clearwater’s St. Joseph and some closed schools like Sacred Heart Academy).
The Academy began life in 1881 from the efforts of two enterprising Sisters from Key West and renowned Tampa civic leader Kate Jackson, but it was a long road from its beginnings to its current prominent location on 3319 Bayshore Blvd. The first 35 students studied in a two-room section of a blacksmith shop and the school used three larger sites until the cornerstone for the Bayshore building was laid in 1928. The Great Depression held up much of the needed construction and the school scaled back on the construction as it started and stopped, and students used Quonset huts as a stopgap measure.
“Only God must have kept it going," Blaser says.
By the 1950s, things were back on track with the school’s chapel (a popular wedding site for alums) coming in 1954. The Boys Academy opened in 1962 and the lower grades became co-ed by the 90s (the high school remains girls-only). Of the thousands of boys and girls who have studied at the Academy, prominent graduates include the aforementioned Gonzmart, Academy Prep Headmaster Lincoln Tamayo, Therese Seal of Seal Swim School and pharmacist executive and politician Rose Ferlita.
Sister Mary Patricia Plumb is a special source of authority on the Academy; she graduated in 1955 and has worked on and off for the school since the 1960s.
“It has changed a lot and not at all. The mission hasn’t changed; to help students be all that they can be,” Plumb says, pointing out that both parents were more likely to work now and more educated, while also being more involved in the lives of their children. In the past, a Language Lab with tapes was considered the height of technology, but now students carry iPads and study at the Sykes Innovation Lab. While the majority of families are still Catholic, more parents are letting their children decide about religion. She does add that students have always sought their own answers about who they are and that God is part of that search.
While the Academy has become more aware of security issues in recent decades, adding a fence, security guards, and ID tags, but it no longer keeps food in the basement to prepare for a nuclear attack. They haven't had any bomb threats in years — but we did when I went there.
One change that the school is particularly happy about? The growth of student mission trips. While volunteer hours and groups were a part of my time at Academy, the school now offers overseas service trips to places like Nicaragua, Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic, as well as domestic sites like Scranton, Ruskin, and Appalachia. The whole school has gotten behind the effort, with children too young to travel helping with fundraisers and gathering supplies.
The Academy has faced a number of ongoing concerns: Money is always an issue. Older buildings need renovation and the school receives no money from the Tampa Diocese.
“Vision has to be paid for,” Plumb says. That said, expansion continues to take place, notably on the remodeled middle school that opened at the start of the fall term. Besides that, the school has worked to recruit more minority students and more male teachers. And processing tumultuous current events like the Charlottesville march keeps teachers challenged.
Nevertheless, faculty and staff at the Academy remain confident that their long-time blend of spirituality and academics, as well as their 100% average of college admission for graduates, will keep the school going for many years to come. As Katie Solomon Holland (another graduate turned employee) pointed out, “once you get there, there’s a magic to the place.”
Amy Katsouris writes Spiritual Shenanigans as a periodic column about all things relating to all faiths.
This article appears in Sep 28 – Oct 6, 2017.