Editor’s Note: This is why this class is special. Acceptance. Unbiased Acceptance.

As you all know, despite being the absolute best class ever(!), we didn’t have a yearbook. But John Knight hopes to make up some of that with this memory book–thank you, John! Along with several of you, I was on the yearbook staff that didn’t get the chance to make a yearbook for our own year. At John’s invitation, I hope to make up for that just a little, by telling you in the most un-boring yet printable terms I can, what CCHS did for me back then, and why it and all of you continue to mean so much to me.

It’s only a slight exaggeration to say that coming to Charleston Catholic in tenth grade saved my sanity. I didn’t know what to expect, but by that point I was so fed up with the public school experience that I would have been willing to deal with a lot worse than walking into classrooms where I didn’t know anybody and suddenly having twice as much homework as I was used to.

Homework I could actually learn something from doing–that was amazing enough! But not having to constantly be on guard for my personal safety at school? No longer witnessing student-on-student violence, blood on the floor, most days in the week? Instruction from teachers with master’s degrees in their subject areas, who liked what they were doing and had the support to do it well? Other kids inviting me to get involved with activities they loved when they didn’t even know me yet–and meaning it? I saw how you treated each other, too; that despite some teasing and posturing and a bit of cliquishness, everybody mattered, everybody had value. It was like I’d walked into a whole different universe. Y’all just blew me away!

It took me a little bit longer to realize that I’d landed in the middle of a bunch of highly-social partiers, but by then I was figuring out that I could trust you. I could trust CCHS. I could trust the faculty. I could trust Sam Minardi, who looked way too young to be a principal.

But let me back up. I grew up on the West Side Hill, like some others in our class, but I didn’t go to St. Anthony’s. Our family was Presbyterian. We lived in a small house near the top, a block from where the hill got really steep and the houses ended. I was the oldest of three kids and we went to public school. This turned out to be a big problem for me because I was too bright.

Before I entered first grade, but after they’d given everyone in our class a group IQ test, the grade school principal called a special meeting with my parents. She told them my IQ put me in danger. She said they had to stop me from learning at home, because if they didn’t I’d never fit in, never have friends, never be able to date, or go to prom, or get married–I’d have a horrible, lonely life and die an old maid if they so much as let me read the newspaper. And all the teachers were told not to “indulge” me by giving me anything extra to learn. In every grade, in most subjects I sat through endless lessons in material I’d mastered long before. I learned to be patient, to keep my mouth shut and never ask for more at school.

This was supposed to make me intellectually normal. Nobody told me about the plan (until my mother had a fit of conscience 45 years later and confessed it all), but it took me only a few months to realize there was a conspiracy. Naturally I set out to learn everything I wanted to know outside of school. My dad helped me access the newspaper at home without my mom noticing. I had a lot of neighborhood friends who liked me fine the way I was. I was happy to be a tomboy and learn to use tools, mow grass and climb trees, as well as cooking and sewing since that was a big help at home. I read my parents’ magazines and my cousin’s high school textbooks; when I was a bit older I haunted the public library. I was happy when my mom finally gave up and taught me more math at home; I knew I’d won. But school was another matter.

Fast forward to a core-urban junior high, 1200 kids in a building made for 800, girls sitting two to a desk, boys standing at the back of the room and still no space to move, American History class in a janitor’s room–but with a good teacher–fights in the stairwells every time classes changed. Nowhere near enough academics, but a highly effective crash course in human relations! Some teachers taught, some babysat, and some were so intimidated they almost never left their classrooms. I traded tutoring during homeroom for protection in the halls, made some really good friends (being in a combat zone together creates bonds), read everything worth reading in the school library, and went on learning all I could, much of it elsewhere.

In the spring of ninth grade our high school sent over guidance counselors to make out our tenth-grade schedules, and I found out how little the high school had to offer. I went home and told my parents we had to figure out another plan, although we had no money for alternatives.

Two weeks later there was a riot at the high school. This was normal in those years. But my grandfather, who had just retired and returned to West Virginia, had no idea what our schools were like. He read about the riot in the paper and called my parents in shock. He told them he would send me to Charleston Catholic and if I liked it he’d send my siblings there, too. That’s how in May, 1972 I found myself interviewing with Sam Minardi. I told him that the public high school guidance counselors had told me that I couldn’t take Algebra II and Geometry in the same year, because one time they had let a boy do that, and (sotto voce) he went insane and had to be institutionalized. Sam threw back his head and laughed until he almost fell out of his office chair. Finally he managed to gasp, “Everybody here does that!” before going off into more laughter. That’s when I knew I might finally be in the right place.

Y’all were around for the rest of my CCHS story, but I’d like to tell you a bit more anyway. I’d never felt so welcomed in any school setting, ever. Finally I got to do as much music as I had time for; finally I could just enjoy going to games and cheering, or playing in the Pep Band; finally I was learning something in every single class! I liked supporting the literary magazine and the Pep Club with artwork; I loved arguing theology with the Sisters who taught religion, and they enjoyed it too; and when I infamously told off Coach Scagnelli in Geometry class, the football team dubbed me “Mad Dog Marion.” I had a nickname–from football players! Some of the best musicians I’ve ever played with I met at CCHS. And I fit in, made friends, dated and went to my prom. I’d never expected to get social in high school, but y’all showed me how.

Maybe some of you saw later on, as you moved out into life, what a gift your Catholic education and CCHS had been. I saw it then because it was so much better for me right away. But more than that, I learned that we are gifts to each other and to the world. Never forget that! I believe we can make a difference for CCHS as a class, if we stay in touch. I challenge us to find a way to give back, to help our school be there for kids in Charleston for a long time to come.