It's Catholic Schools Week (January 29-February 2) and we're celebrating the intersection of faith and community here at St. Francis High School!

We gathered together this morning for an All-School Liturgy, have special events and activities planned all week, and are posting student reflections on faith on our social media.

We celebrate Catholic Schools Week in partnership with you, our alumni! Please share your experience of "Faith and Community" at SFHS with us and we'll share it in our Spring issue of Focus Magazine!

Todd Shaw '89

tshaw@

sfhscollegeprep.org

(630) 668-5800 x1143

Calling all Classes from ‘4 and ‘9 – it's time to organize your next reunion! We're here to help, please reach out to start planning your event.

Spring 2024

Focus Magazine

Send us your updates and photos! Careers, marriages, new babies, and more - we want to hear from you!

Please also send any contact info updates to stay informed about all things SFHS.

As you may know, we welcomed Todd Shaw '89 to the SFHS Advancement Department earlier this year - and he's now your go-to contact for all things alumni relations! Todd has a long history with the school and has fostered a successful Spartan Classic Golf Outing as co-chair for the past 7 years. He will also serve as a liaison at the Alumni Association meetings moving forward.

We'd like to thank Becky Feltes '97 Fischesser for connecting with our alumni, planning reunions, and so much more over the past 8 years. Becky continues to support the mission of SFHS in the Advancement Department through a renewed focus on the SFHS Annual Fund and Student Scholarships and will serve as our database manager. You can reach Todd at tshaw@sfhscollegeprep.org or (630) 668-5800 x1143.

You might recognize some familiar faces here! At this morning's All-School Liturgy, we honored our dedicated faculty and staff celebrating milestone years. Congratulations to all and thank you for your service to SFHS!

Peg Kopec (50); Mary Pratscher '93 (25); John Schuller (25); Kate Kolasinski '95 Doane (20); Bob Mamminga (20); Sheri Meadows (20); Christine Paolella ’08 Dougherty (10); Jenny Stiefel (10); Maria Kazlauskas (5); Kevin Kloss (5); Lyn Schmidt (5); Amy Stumpf (5); and Brendan Tagler (5).

Do you know someone who should be named a Distinguished Alumni or in our Hall of Honor? Distinguished Alumni are recognized for their actions following graduation. The Hall of Honor recognizes alumni for their achievements while they were SFHS students.

This event is held biennially and the committee is accepting nominations for the 2024 event through March 1, 2024. Nominate today!

On January 8, our Alumni Panel event had current Spartans gleaning college wisdom from recent SFHS grads. Thank you Avery Bonk ‘22, Joe Cibulka ’20, John Gerdeman ’21, and Katherine Lemke ’21!

Did you see the Grand Prize for the Auction Raffle is $7,500, second place is $2,000, and third place is $500?! That's three chances to win...and raffle tickets are just $20 each!

Winners are drawn at the auction, but you need not be present to win. Support the auction from wherever you are and buy a raffle ticket or two today!

Planning on attending the auction? Great! It's time to get your tickets, now available on our website for $150 each. Admission includes gourmet food, open bar, and live entertainment - what a night!

Matt Mucci ‘03 visited Dr. Juliano's Engineering class this month to share about his career as an engineer - what he calls being "a professional problem-solver." He encouraged students to stay broad in their choice of what area of engineering to focus on and offered different examples of careers in engineering.

Over time, he said he’s found it valuable to not be as hard on himself as he once was. He encouraged students to let things go that they’re not able to do at a given point in time and to be patient with themselves. 

Matt has worked on several interesting projects over the years, including a role at a turkey factory, car safety design for the Tesla Model 3, and currently with industrial-size dishwashers. Thank you for sharing your story and expertise with us, Matt!