Student Achievement

Art in National Exhibition

Artworks by St. Mary’s Dominican High School seniors Molly LeBlanc, Corinne Lobell, and Laila Mullen were selected to be in the 2022 National Art Honor Society (NAHS)/National Junior Art Honor Society Juried Exhibition. The students’ work was chosen to represent their school in the virtual exhibition. Mullen’s Dominican art teacher was Angelle Caffery who also was moderator of Dominican’s NAHS chapter. LeBlanc and Lobell were students of art teacher Rosalie Abadie.

Representatives from six member schools of the Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design (AICAD) participated as jurors: Burren College of Art, College of Creative Studies, Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design, Minneapolis College of Art and Design, Moore College of Art and Design, and Parsons School of Design. Overall, 200 artworks out of 1,665 submissions were chosen as part of the virtual exhibit which opened on January 18.

Molly Leblanc

Corinne Lobell Laila Mullen

Molly titled her entry, Happy Morning & New Beginnings. “I took this picture of bacon and eggs while I was evacuated for Hurricane Ida. When we went to eat, I made this to make someone laugh, not knowing I was going to draw it and have a happy memory from this scary experience,” she said.

Corrine titled her entry, The Historic French Quarter. She shared, “The French Quarter is my favorite part of the city due to its liveliness, bright colors, and architecture. It is one of the places in the world where everywhere you look it is picture-perfect, full of life, and history. The classic multi-story building and the bright colors I used shed only a sliver of its beauty.”

Knights Of Peter Claver

For her entry, Self-Portrait, Laila noted, “I wanted to create a portrait that would show my inner feelings and how others can misconstrue them. The emotion I portray was insecurity, yet the outlook that many others may see is confidence and beauty, which brings forth obscurity.”

At the Knights of Peter Claver Junior Division’s 24th Biennial National Convention, senior Caitlyn Dumas was elected to a leadership position, Junior Supreme Lady. A member for nine years, she begins her first term serving as the Junior Supreme Lady. Nearly 500 junior and senior members attended the convention that was virtual due to COVID-19. Caitlyn attends All Saints Catholic Church in New Orleans where she is an altar server and member of the Catholic Youth Organization. In an interview for the fall issue of The Josephite Harvest, Caitlyn said the Knights of Peter Claver are important to her, “because of the family that I have gained from being a member, which will last a lifetime. I am looking forward to meeting and getting to know other juniors in different districts and states.” During her term, Caitlyn hopes to bridge the gap between the younger and older members of the junior division. She also wants to encourage her peers to attend Mass, noting, “A key concern that is facing young African American Catholics is the inability and or lack of desire to attend church. One way that I believe I can address this is by having a retreat that has both prayer and fun so that the youth can see that there are two sides to a church, the prayer side and the fun side.”

The Knights of Peter Claver and Ladies Auxiliary was founded in 1909 in Mobile, Alabama, with the support of the Josephites. It is the largest and oldest historically Black Catholic lay fraternal in the world. Since 1951, it has been headquartered in New Orleans with more than 15,000 members across the United States and Colombia, South America.

St. Joseph’s Society of the Sacred Heart, The Josephites, a religious community of Catholic Priests and Brothers, is committed to serving the African American community through the proclamation of the Gospel and their personal witness. The Josephites’ commitment is expressed through sacramental, educational, and pastoral ministry, service to those in need, and working for social justice. It is an interracial, intercultural community of priests and brothers who work to advance the teachings of the Church in the African American community. The Society is the only community of men in the American Catholic Church that is engaged exclusively in this particular ministry.