SAINTS MYSTERIES Revealed

Have you ever wondered where the 8th grade stairs are located? What’s our mascot’s name? And why do we call our bus the Bullet? Answers to some of these questions follow below … so now you can be in the know on some not-so-secret Saints lore.

GSL Mascot:

A St. Bernard, named Luke ... get it?

The Saints:

Our school nickname!

The Bullet:

Our iconic red & white school bus, used primarily for transport to Snowden Field (though older alumni swear it made at least one trip in the ’80s to the Florida Panhandle). Named because of the speed at which it was driven by certain former coaches on staff. The first Bullet was acquired by GSL in the ’70s. The second Bullet (pictured here) was acquired in 1983 and retired in 2022. Current bus … Bullet 3?!

Fan 5:

Five designated home games featuring our 7/8 Varsity girls and boys basketball teams.

Luker(s) for Life:

Anyone who has ever attended GSL or worked at GSL, for any amount of time. Once a Luker, always a Luker!

Legacy Lukers:

Graduating students whose parent(s) also attended GSL; Margaret Fore ’23 and Mary Evelyn Stevens Fore ’91 pictured here.

8th Grade Stairs:

Stairs on west side of Morton Hall, designated for use only by 8th graders, as a special privilege for them.

Legacy Club:

GSL graduates who attended for at least nine years.

Formative 5:

Have

An Anchor for Life:

Our longtime GSL motto.

Our social-emotional learning program, based on empathy, self-control, integrity, embracing diversity, and grit, known in an earlier iteration as the Traits for Success.

Dogpound: Saints' student section, where we like to get loud!

GSL'S #1 FAN MARILYN KIDD RETIRES AFTER 44+ YEARS

Bookkeeper, Appointment 1979

Lorena Webber Walker Award, 2005

To describe Marilyn Kidd simply as the school’s Bookkeeper, a position she has held for the past 44 years at GSL, is to vastly understate the influence and impact she’s had on this school and the entire Grace-St. Luke’s community.

Officially appointed as a member of the school staff in 1979, Marilyn’s connection with GSL began years earlier as a parent, when she and husband Hulette Kidd brought their third-grader Paul and second-grader Phillip here in 1971. Like so many GSL parents, she became involved immediately, first as a room mother, then as a substitute teacher, then as a substitute in the Administrative Office. The office was a two-story stucco building at that time, attached to the original Primary Building, in the spot where Bratton Hall now stands on the western corner of our campus. She befriended another longtime GSL mainstay, former Business Manager Kathie Cavette, and proved so indispensable to day-to-day operations that the school officially appointed her its bookkeeper in 1979.

Lucky for all of us at GSL, Marilyn and her family became integral to all aspects of campus life at GSL. She and her husband were charter members of GSL's Athletic Booster Club. He umpired countless baseball games for the Saints and spent summers helping maintain our campus –sprucing up classrooms and repairing items that always seemed to need fixing. Never one to shirk a job that needed doing, Marilyn herself painted all the bathrooms in the Primary Building one summer, and was for several years in charge of our maintenance needs, on top of her business office responsibilities. Her boys played sports and thrived, both attending through 9th grade (Paul in 1977 and Phillip in 1978) before going on to high school at Memphis Prep.