Monday, September 30, 2013

Home Coming Pep Rally

Home coming week was kicked off with a Sunday night pep rally.  Each day this week will feature a theme that deviates from the regular dress code culminating in "Black Out Day" on Friday.  The Knights will host the Bennington Badgers for Friday night's homecoming football game. The Homecoming dance will take place on Saturday night.  Go Knights!  More photos

Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Senior Retreat Fall 2013


This year's senior retreat featured the Ropes Course at Boys Town. Photos

Friday, September 20, 2013

2013 Junior Class Retreat

The Class of 2015 held there annual retreat at Saint Patrick's parish in Fremont, Nebraska. Photos

Thursday, September 19, 2013

Tarantolo Wins State Pro Life Essay Contest

Stefano Tarantolo '15
It was recently announced that Mount Michael’s Stefano Tarantolo has won the State Pro Life essay contest for the 10th grade.  Having won last school year’s 10th grade essay contest for the Archdiocese of Omaha, Stefano’s essay competed against the 10th grade winning essays in the other two dioceses of Nebraska.  As a result, Stefano receives an award of $150 and Mount Michael Benedictine will receive $150.  The contest is sponsored by the Knights of Columbus and the state office of the Bishops’ Pastoral Plan for Pro Life Activities. Stefano will be presented with the award at the state Bishops’ Pro Life Banquet on Friday, October 18th in Omaha.  Congratulations Stefano!


Dr. Peters, Bob Finger (Knights of Colulmbus) Stefano Tarantolo, Mrs. Amy Masek (Religion Teacher)

Monday, September 16, 2013

58th Annual Mount Michael Abbey Fall Festival


Thank you to everyone for all the hard work and support given to make the festival such a great success!

Photos: Fall Festival - Tucker Hill Citizen's Brigade - Clean up

Sophomore Retreat


The Class of 2016 recently enjoyed a day off from class for their annual class retreat.  It was held this year at the Holy Family Shrine south of the town of Gretna.  Photos taken by Elliott Heinemen '16

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Mount Michael Record Enrollment: 233 Students

Will Sleddens | Staff Writer for "The Mount"
This school year, hallways at the Mount seem fuller than ever. Elbows brushing elbows, pushing and shoving through the halls, and squeezing past others have become necessary tactics for making it to class on time. With a record enrollment of 233, Mount Michael staff and students are making changes to accommodate the larger student population.

Up by 16 students from last year, new classes, new staff, new schedules, and even a new dorm room have been added to help fit new students. “We've hired another guidance counselor, Mrs. Kunkel, and Mr. Pritchard has become a full-time 7 day dean,” Head of School, Dr. Peters said. “We’re big enough now that we need our own drama teacher, which is another job that Mrs. Kunkel will be doing, and we've expanded our course offerings as a direct result of more students.”

One issue that this population influx has created is lack of space. A large boarding population has resulted in new arrangements to fi t all students into rooms. A new dorm has been added on the four person floor, a room that was previously the senior day student room. Additionally, two sophomores have been moved to a dorm on the senior floor, and a few dorm rooms that normally house two students are being used for three. Zach Hytrek and Brian Kang, the two sophomores living on the senior floor, say they have mixed feelings about their dorm location. “The internet sucks down here. Plus we don’t get to have fun with our classmates on the sophomore floor,” Kang said. Zach Hytrek looked at the upside of having these rooms: “These rooms are way closer to the classrooms, and that’s nice.” He also said that on his first few days on the floor, seniors would always ask why he was on the senior floor. “It happened like 10 times a day!” Mount Michael’s classrooms are fuller this year than in past years, too. The administration has had to work hard to make sure that rooms were available for every course throughout the day. “I’m glad we were able to fi t all of our classes into classrooms,” Peters said. “We thought that we might have to get portables.” Mr. Mackeprang and Mrs. Raabe put a lot into organizing these classes to fi t the school. “Logistics, that’s what the job entails,” Mackeprang said. “Actually, fitting the classes into rooms was the last thing we did. First, we had to work out the schedule. Some people didn't get the classes they wanted, but it’ll never be perfect for everybody. We've managed to make it work well for this year.”

Peters attributes part of the growth to the loss of last year’s small senior class and gaining a new larger freshman class. He also said that, ideally, he would like to see the population top out around 240 (approximately 60 in each class) so students should expect the population to grow.

With this future expansion, however, will come new additions to Mount Michael. Ground was recently broken for a new garage near the monastery, which will allow the old monastery garage to be converted into a new weight room, and the weight room will be converted into classes and teacher offices.


It’s clear that big changes are coming to Mount Michael. With higher student populations comes the need for newer and better facilities around campus. While the elbow banging and shoulder brushing might become slightly irritating, it will be interesting to see the changes being made at the Mount as the number of students continues to increase.

Friday, September 6, 2013

Cross Country Team: Article form the Omaha World Herald

CROSS COUNTRY
Cross country is campus-wide for Knights

28 Knights: 2013 AP Scholars

Congratulations to the many Mount Michael students and recent graduates who achieved the status of AP Scholars by the National College Board for their success on advanced placement exams last May. 

(5) AP Scholar with Distinction:    (*National AP Scholars)
John Choi*, Eun Woo Jee, Paul Kujawa*, Yun Sik Oh, James Steier
(6) AP Scholar with Honors
Peter Dewald, Hunter Hottovy, Yoon Ho Kim, Joe Kucirek, Randy Speer, David J Wooten
(17) AP Scholar
Gabe Cohen, Jarrett Crnkovich, John T. Cronin, Collin Donahue, Cameron Engel, Yutong Gao, Alex Hynes, Andrew Johannes, Christian Jones, Thomas Kalil, Moonsup Kim, John Mikulicz, Connor Moynihan, Jihoon Park, Jacob Recker, Kyle Silke, Scott Townsend.


Info on Scholars in past years

Thursday, September 5, 2013

Bystander v. Leader

A Board Corner by Jim Clements 

Jim Clements Mount Michael Class of 1995
Diversity and inclusivity are two things that have weighed on my mind a lot lately. These are things I suppose I have always thought about. I consider myself a fairly open-minded person when it comes to those different than me.  The problem is that I was not contributing towards making the community I live in a more diverse and inclusive one. I was mostly patting myself on the back about how really open-minded I was.

So here is a call to action: not only to you, but also to me. I think it is important that we as young professionals hold ourselves accountable in making Omaha a more diverse and inclusive city. Let me tell you a little bit about where I am coming from and the kinds of things I think young professionals need to do in order to make this happen.

Read Entire Article on Greater Omaha Young Professionals Website

Wednesday, September 4, 2013

Knights receive Mandation

On Tuesday evening a ceremony was held at Saint Cecelia's Cathedral where numerous Knights were mandated as Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion.

Kneeling: Austin Bloomquist, Logan Kalkowski, Junwoo Lee, Oliver Jarosik , Ian Alfieri, Mickey Coughlin, Nhat Nguyen.


Standing: Austin Ramaeker, Augustin deMayo, Brian Kim, Alex Hotovy, Zach Frevert, Andrew Whitaker, David Uwinganji, Kevin Jewell.

More Photos

Midlands Voices: Vets’ skills well suited for work force

(From the Omaha World Herald)
By Cliff McEvoy'00

The author, a former U.S. Air Force captain, is a job readiness and training manager with the Nebraska Veteran Leader Corps program.
When someone asks me what I did in the Air Force, I pause and say, “I was a nuclear missile operator.”
I pause because I have been asked enough times to know that the response is usually, “Oh … OK,” followed by a blank stare. Even my closest friends and family still don’t understand exactly what I did in the military.