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McCurdy
Alumni Council
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Alumni Homecoming News !00 Year Celebration
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March, 2011
Fellow McCurdy Alumni:
It was a little over a year ago that I last updated you on this site about goings-on at McCurdy.
A lot has happened in the past year, and thankfully, the outlook for McCurdy is promising. Last year I challenged alumni to help the school in its “2010 Fund”, a special effort with the goal to have 2,010 donors contribute $500 to the school. I challenged alumni to group together, either as classes, or as a close knit athletic team, or as any other group, to get together and make a donation to the school. Although many contributed, the campaign fell well short of that goal of raising $1,000,000. But the money that was raised was instrumental in allowing the school to close out the year. To those of you who contributed, whatever the amount, thank you for remembering McCurdy and what part it has had in your life. For those that did not, please consider being a regular donor to a school that needs your support.
Earlier this year, the Board of Trustees, acting on a recommendation from a task force comprised of McCurdy staff, board members, alumni, and parents, announced that McCurdy will seek to obtain charter school status with the New Mexico Public Education Department beginning with the 2012-2013 year. The board outlined at a meeting for stakeholders in January that in order to operate with a budget that assures deserving pay for teachers, sufficient money for successful academic programs, and the ability to address an aging infrastructure, McCurdy School would need to raise about $1,000,000 per year through donations, above and beyond tuition income, year after year (and this amount would not significantly change with even a considerable increase in enrollment). With the current trend for donations coming to the school from alumni, the General Board of Global Ministries, individual churches, and others, this looks to be a tall order. So an effort is underway to craft a charter for McCurdy School that would result in a McCurdy Charter School that gives its students the tools needed to be successful and community-minded citizens with the utmost character. In other words, a continuation of the mission of the McCurdy we have known.
School year 2011-2012 marks an incredible milestone to our school – its 100th Anniversary! It was in 1912 that Mellie Perkins, responding to a call to service from the Reverend Clarence Schlotterbeck of Kansas, traveled from Dumas, Texas, to begin work in Velarde, New Mexico. In 1915, Miss Perkins opened the Santa Cruz Mission School. The school started with a total of 8 students. The first building at the Santa Cruz site was dedicated in November 1915 and was named after a friend of Miss Perkins, Edith M. McCurdy, who had died 3 years prior and who had instructed and encouraged Miss Perkins. Since those days, McCurdy has stood as a “Light in the Valley”, not only providing a “Quality Education with a Christian Emphasis”, but also by being an important part of the history of Northern New Mexico.
I hope that this awesome milestone, the 100th year of McCurdy School, would motivate alumni, community members, local businesses, and supporters across the nation to include McCurdy in their gifting, and help the “mission” as it re-defines itself going forward into its 2nd 100 years, to serve hopefully more students in the Valley as a charter school that is surrounded by programs and activities that make McCurdy what it has been for all these years.
Chris Martinez
Class of 1984 |
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Alumni Council Officers
2009-2010 President
Gabriel Brown, Class of 2002
719.310.8144 gbrown@co.nef.com
2009-2010 Vice President
June Duran Moreno, Class of 1965
505.873.2911 moreno_djd@earthlink.net
2009-2010 Secretary/Treasurer
Judy (Kelly) Duran, Class of 1964
505.797.4776 daduran@msn.com
Kathleen Kay Boegli (Kathy Unger) Obituary
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