AN E-NEWSLETTER FOR BORGIA ALUMS
Mega Raffle
Each year St. Francis Borgia Regional High School gives away $25,000 in prizes through our annual Borgia Mega Raffle. There are two $1,000 drawings each month, and an additional $1,000 drawing on October 10 to celebrate the Feast of St. Francis Borgia.

The Borgia Mega Raffle Drive launches each year in October and runs until mid-December.

This year's Mega Raffle sales are complete and although we did not hit our goal, we still raised over $116,400 toward our school's general operating budget!

Grace Hendrickson, selling 60 tickets and Amy Wunderlich selling 94 tickets are our top sellers. Each will receive $250 in tuition credit and more.
Mega Raffle Winners
December's Winners
December 1 - Jack Blanton (sold by Aiden Brundick)
December 15 - Howard Marquart '61

January's Winners
January 1 - Joseph Lueckenhoff '69 (Braedyn Frankenberg)
January 15 - Diane Nobe (sold by Brooke Nobe)
A Knight at the Masters
Dinner Auction
Saturday, February 16, 2019
St. Francis Borgia Regional High School is now accepting reservations and sponsorships for its annual dinner auction.

The dinner auction will be held Saturday, February 16, 2019 in the Ray DeGreeff Gymnasium. The theme will be  A Knight at the Masters ”.  Items include concert and theater tickets, vacations, group dinners and parties, golf outings, beer and wine tours, tickets to sporting events, weekend getaways, and gift certificates.

Tickets for the dinner auction are $75 per person. After Feb. 1, the tickets will increase to $100 per person. Tables of 10 are available. Reservations may be made by calling 636-239-7871, extension 123 or emailing bridget.callahan@borgia.com. Seating is limited.

The evening will include cocktails and dinner, a silent auction, live auction and fantasy auction. A grand prize raffle of $10,000 also will be held. Tickets for the raffle are on sale now and a limited number will be sold.

For more information, to donate an item or become a sponsor, please call or email Bridget Callahan at at 636-239-7871, extension 123 or bridget.callahan@borgia.com. 
Thank you to all who have participated in this year's Borgia Annual Fund Drive. To date we have received $155,000 in gifts toward this year’s goal of $225,000.  The endorsement of our alumni is a critical factor toward the success of this fund which enables Borgia to be the excellent school that is it!!


As an alum, your support is so important.   Your generosity as an alum is a vote of confidence to all of our donors that we are continuing to provide excellence in education – now and in the future .

Borgia’s current students are the most direct and immediate beneficiaries of all Annual Fund gifts.

WHAT ARE THE TOP FIVE REASONS TO GIVE?

  1. IT'S A WRITE OFF! Your gift to Borgia is tax deductible. Who doesn't love that?!
  2. IT WON'T BREAK THE BANK. Brown bag your lunch or skip a few morning lattes and you can make a big difference in a student's life. (An annual gift of $25 is a little less than $.07 per day.)
  3. YOU BENEFITED FROM THE GENEROSITY OF SO MANY. Now is your chance to pay it forward and provide for current and future Borgia students!
  4. IT'S YOUR GIFT AND YOUR CHOICE. This year, as something new to the Annual Fund, donors have a choice of where to designate their gifts. Choose from Education, General Operating, Spiritual and Professional Development or Tuition Assistance.
  5. STRENGTH IN NUMBERS! The strength of Borgia depends on the strength of our alumni, parents, grandparents and friends working together. The strength of Borgia depends on YOU!
How can I donate?
Please enter our secure website at www.borgia.com   to join your fellow Borgia parents in making a gift to the Annual Fund. Pledges are welcome. Remember that your gift can be doubled if you or your spouse is associated with a matching gift company.

If you have any questions, please contact Donna Grahl, Director of Annual Giving at 636-239-7871 ext. 131 or donna.grahl@borgia.com.

What are Matching Gifts?
You can double or triple your donation if you or your spouse works for a company that matches gifts. Simply ask your employer about the Matching Gift Program and forward your personal gift along with a completed matching gift form.
Rev Kev Corner
Everyone has a plan, until they get punched in the face.
-Mike Tyson

Every student who comes to St. Francis Borgia Regional High School has a dream, a strategy, a scheme, a plan. It may be a detailed plan; it may be a general or even a vague plan. They may be firm in this plan, they may be flexible with their plan, but I am sure every one of them knows what course, at least temporarily, they will be set for the next year or so and maybe longer. This is a good, healthy, and holy thing, something I wholeheartedly encourage with our students.

The only problem is that all of us will inevitably, allegorically speaking at least, get punched in the face. It might be a slight jab that temporarily stuns us. It might be a rocking left hook that sends us reeling to the canvas. Nevertheless, our response, our reaction, and how we dare to bounce back make all the difference in the world, all the difference in our lives.
Just ask the Lindemanns. In November of 2015, they were, metaphorically speaking, punched in the face, and the gut as well. Bone cancer was not part of the plan of Stephanie Lindemann’s life.  Her response, their response as a family, the response of her friends and classmates, and the response of our community in general was alternately courageous, daring, spirited, and noble. Like most of our lives will be, it was filled with successes, setbacks, disappointments, and joys. It forced everyone to live on the edge for the last three years. It called all of us beyond—beyond ourselves, beyond our petty problems, beyond the daily challenges of our lives. It took all of us to a place we may not necessarily desired to go. It was not fair, it was not just, but it may just have been the place all of us needed to be.

One of the things that I hope happens at SFBRHS is that learning, real learning, not just subjects, not just knowledge, but real down to your toes learning occurs here. And that only happens when we are forced out of our comfort zones. We can gather information in safe places, we can filter, categorize, and assemble facts in soft spots, but we can only learn, really learn in places that are uncomfortable, foreign, and possibly even threatening. That is where our real education occurs. 
The best things in life are on the other side of fear. The best views in life come from the hardest climbs . Those who desire to take the easy route, the well-worn road, the path of least resistance may never know what it really means to acquire knowledge, what it means to absorb understanding. They may never know what it means to really live.

However, being forced out of our comfort zones comes with a dear and costly price. It is dangerous. It is hazardous. It is treacherous. It is not a safe place at all. Failure lurks there, so does exhaustion, so does frustration, so does exasperation, so does aggravation, and so does mind-numbing stress. It is easy and understandable to want to give in and give up. 

And that’s where the inspiration of another great philosopher, our friend, Dory (from Finding Nemo ) comes in. Dory and Steph offered us the inspiration that we here at Borgia have continually worn since that fateful day in 2015 : Just keep swimming . It’s not just a shirt. It’s not just a slogan. It’s not just a catchphrase. It is written on our hearts. It has become part of the Borgia DNA. And I can only hope it continues to encourage, motivate, and spur generation after generation on in their lives. We may not have to face the dread of Ewing’s Sarcoma, we may have to face something even more daunting, but I pray we have the wherewithal, I pray we have the resources, I pray we have the grace and strength of a mighty, steady, and generous God to just keep going, to just keep striving, to just keep swimming. 

For those of you who don’t know, Steph’s fierce battle with cancer ended on January 4, 2019. But Ewing’s Sarcoma could not touch her spirit. That lives on… in her family, in her classmates, in any and all who were touched by the story of the sassy young woman with a beautiful smile and a warrior’s heart.

Rest in Peace, Steph. 
And we promise to just keep swimming.
basketball_dark.jpg
SAVE THE DATE - CORRECTION
Alumni Basketball Games to be Held March 23
This year's alumni basketball games will be on March 23, 2019. All former varsity girls and boys basketball players are invited to play in this fundraising event to benefit the SFBRHS Athletic Association.

Detail and invitations will follow. In the meantime, if you have any questions, please contact Mike Sinnott at  msinnott@eckelkamp-enterprises.com
Congratulations Fr. Kevin
We are so proud to share that Fr. Kevin Schmittgens, President of our school, for his dedication to the students, faculty, and alumni of the Borgia Theatre Department, has been selected as the Missouri State Thespian 2019 Outstanding Administrator Award!

Tim Buchheit, our Theatre Department Director said it best in his presentation of the award, "Good morning ladies and gentlemen...All those years ago when I started at St. Francis Borgia, the gentleman who had directed the theatrical productions in the six previous years , Fr. Kevin Schmittgens, wasn't stepping away or leaving the school. He just planned to take a "less active role" in the theater department. He had already established a very strong theater program at Borgia, having directed less traditional shows for high school like Barnum and Mame, and Into the Woods (which was new to the high school circuit at the time). Having similar taste in shows, Fr. Kevin and I became very good friends.

As it turned out, his version of a "less active role" might be different than yours or mine. Since taking a less active role, he has directed three productions at Borgia, performed in several productions, including the voice of the plant in Little Shop of Horrors, and the voice of Zoltar in Big the Musical. He has become our theater photographer and has taken thousands of pictures of our shows throughout the years. He has also performed in several productions with the local community theater, The Riverside Players in shows like Working and The Boys Next Door . Do you see how "less active" still made him very active in theater?

Two years ago, Fr. Kevin was named the President of St. Francis Borgia Regional High School. And with all of the responsibilities that go along with being president, I thought that Borgia Theater might have seen the last of Fr. Kevin. On the contrary. Fr. Kevin is still our photographer and our biggest supporter. He sits in on rehearsals at times, just because he loves theater and our students. An last year, when the lighting console and the sound mixer in our theater both began to malfunction, and the wireless microphones we were using began to be phased out by the FCC, and many of our lighting instruments were beginning to fail, Fr. Kevin used his position as president to step up and really help us out. Upon his insistence, Borgia Theater became the recipient of our school's annual dinner auction's Fund A Need" donations, where in a span of about 10 minutes, $40,000 was raised to help the theater department purchase new lighting and sound equipment. And thus, Fr. Kevin's "less active roll" has become a huge role in the life of our theater department and the students at St. Francis Borgia Regional High School.

Fr. Kevin couldn't be here today because he was needed at our school and in our community because of very recent graduate of Borgia, last Friday, lost her three year battle with cancer and passed away. But it is my very great honor and pleasure to accept the Missouri State Thespian's Administrator of the Year Award on behalf of my boss, my mentor, and my very good friend, Fr. Kevin Schmittgens.
STEM is strong at Borgia
STEM (Science, technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) at Borgia has proven to be a very successful program. Through the generosity of the Endowment Fund, Borgia is now home to a state-of-the-art STEM Lab equipped with computers loaded with engineering software, three 3D printers, a laser engraver, a drill press, and a band saw. Borgia partners with the nationally-acclaimed Project Lead the Way (PLTW), and our students have scored significantly higher than the national average on the PLTW end-of-course assessments. Our classes visit local businesses and learn about the field of engineering employment. Currently, our STEM program offers the following classes: Computer Science Principles, Introduction to Engineering, Principles of Engineering, Engineering Design and Civil Engineering.

In addition, the science department has incorporated wireless LabQuest 2 data-collection devices, which have standalone interface. Students are able to collect, analyze, and share data from experiments wirelessly with iPads.
Mass N More
Every Sunday evening at 6 p.m. a student-led Mass is held in the chapel at SFBRHS. This weekly Mass is celebrated and led by one of our deanery priests. Come join us in this cozy setting, and give glory to God with other members of the Borgia Family.
Sports Schedule
Click on the logo to the right to view all upcoming sports schedules. If you would like notifications on games, please click on the logo at the right and sign up under "notify me". You will receive game time changes, cancellations and game reminders if you are signed up .
Alumni Prayers
In thanksgiving for the sacrifices and contributions offered by those before us on our behalf, we at St. Francis Borgia Regional High School offer our afternoon prayer for different members of our alumni each day.
Alumni in the News
Joy Boland '93
The St. Louis Theater Circle has announced this year's nominees and our own Joy Boland has been nominated for "Outstanding Supporting Actress in a her role as Ursula in Variety Theatre's 2018 production of Disney's The Little Mermaid !

Kyle Marquart '81
After a long and outstanding 33-1/2 year career with the Missouri Highway Patrol, Kyle Marquart, a 1981 graduate of our school retired as Director of the Records Division.

Phil Schroeder '83
Proud Dad Phil Schroeder, SFBRHS Class of 1983, has two daughters. Abby is a junior at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland and Amelia is a freshman at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York. As you can imagine, the annual Army-Navy football game is a big deal in his household!
Recently married? New baby or job?
Let us know what's going on in your life so we can share
it with your classmates in this newsletter!
Send information and photos to donna.grahl@borgia.com.
St. Francis Borgia Regional High School 

1000 Borgia Drive, Washington, MO 63090
P: 636-239-7871 
F: 636-239-1198