St. Mark's School of Texas

About St. Mark's School of Texas


'The St. Mark's School of Texas' is a nonsectarian preparatory day school for boys located in Dallas, Texas, USA. The school begins at first grade and continues through the twelfth grade.

Contents
History
The school today
Student life
Notable alumni
External links

History


St. Mark's was created in 1950 by a group of Dallas businessmen. The original name was to have been St. James's, but St. James is associated with the lamb. St. Mark's was chosen because a lion was thought a more suitable mascot.
St. Mark's was developed out of three less-financed private schools: Terrill School (1906–44), Texas Country Day School (1933–50), and Cathedral School (1944–50). The school traces its history to Mr. Terrill's school, which he founded in 1906 as the city's first effort to create a private school that could rival its east coast counterparts. The Hockaday School for Girls was founded in 1913; it became a "sister" school to St. Mark's.

The school today


The school was historically fairly homogeneous and geared towards the sons of doctors, lawyers, and affluent businessmen. St. Mark's has made significant gains in terms of financial aid and minority recruitment, however, and now 28% of the school is composed of "students of color." Approximately 10% of students are involved with the financial aid program at St. Mark's as of 2005-2006.
Eighty percent of the 106 faculty members have advanced degrees, while 25% have been at St. Mark's for more than twenty years. There are twelve endowed teaching positions, including nine endowed chairs.
Neatly organized across its forty acres are an array of buildings, most of which are named after well-known Dallas families. Texas Instruments' co-founders Cecil H. Green and Eugene McDermott[1] donated the math and science quadrangle, the main library, the greenhouse, the planetarium and the observatory. The Roosevelt family contributed a carillon in early 2005, Ralph Rogers [2] provided the natatorium, the Lamar Hunt family donated a football stadium, completed in the fall of 2005, and Tom Hicks, the owner of MLB's Texas Rangers the NHL's Dallas Stars, and Liverpool FC, funded a new gymnasium. Its arts facilities are also impressive. ''Time'' magazine once called St. Mark's the "best-equipped day school in the country." D Magazine also rated it the best school in the Dallas area.
The most commonly attended colleges by graduates between 1997 and 2007 were [3]
University of Texas at Austin, Stanford University, Emory University, Vanderbilt University, Northwestern University, Southern Methodist University(SMU), Duke University, University of Pennsylvania, Harvard University,
Texas A&M University, Princeton University, University of Southern California and Yale University
St. Mark's has long resisted efforts towards coeducation, though there are a half dozen courses that students can take with Hockaday students at the Hockaday campus. Its uniform has remained unchanged for decades: grey shorts or pants and white oxford shirts; seniors, though, wear blue shirts. The school's mascot is the lion, and the official colors are navy blue and gold.

Student life


Its 817 students, frequently known as Marksmen, are spread across first through twelfth grade. Lower School classes average about 15 boys, and there is an overall student/faculty ratio of 8:1.
Extracurricular activities and sports are an integral part of campus life. Its sports teams compete against similarly sized private schools in the Southwest Preparatory Conference [4], an athletic conference created by the Independent Schools Association of the Southwest. Certain teams—such as swimming, wrestling, golf, and tennis—compete against the largest schools in the state, while such teams as crew, water polo, lacrosse, ice hockey, and fencing are played at St. Mark's but are not widely followed in the large public schools of Texas.
St. Mark's offers 36 Upper School clubs and academic teams, a list of which can be found here. St. Mark's students have long been nationally prominent in policy debate. The school also hosts one of the biggest debate tournaments in the nation, the St. Mark's Heart of Texas Invitational.
The Upper School newspaper ''The Remarker'', literary magazine ''The Marque'', and the yearbook win national awards nearly every year. For example, in both 2005 and 2006, St. Mark's was the only school in the country in which each of its three publications was a finalist for the Crown awards, given annually by Columbia University [5]; no other school has placed three finalists in one year for at least fifteen years. In 2006, all three St. Mark's publications won Gold Crowns. Many of the other teams are similarly prominent in contests involving math, robotics, science, and languages.
Typical SAT range (25th–75th percentile) is 1320–1530
[6].

Notable alumni



★ Richard Bass '46. Owner, Snowbird Ski Resort. Mountain climber. [7]

★ William Clarkson '66. President, The Westminster Schools [8]

★ Matt Walker '91. Musician, erstwhile drummer of Chicago-based band Smashing Pumpkins.

★ Robert Decherd '69. Chairman and CEO, Belo, a media conglomerate. [9]

★ Kurt Eichenwald '79. Journalist. [10]

★ H. Ross Perot, Jr. '77. Executive Chairman, Perot Systems, Real Estate Developer. [11]

★ Bob Marshall '96. US Olympic Committee Crew Captain.

★ Gary Williams '88. World's largest producer of natural gas.

★ Eric Miller Reeves '82. Politician, Businessman [12]

★ Giancarlo Binando '03. Backup singer for High School Musical 2.

★ Boz Scaggs '62. Musician. [13]

★ Eddie Van Halen '73. Singer of the rock band Van Halen.

★ William Stone '97. Entrepreneur, venture capitalist at Hunt Stone Walker Associates in Mountain View, CA.

★ Michael Vanderbilt '79. Vice chairman of New York Life Insurance Company.

★ Harlan Crow '75. Real estate investor in Dallas, son of Trammell Crow.[14]

★ Douglas St. Clair Smith, aka Ivan Stang '71. Minister and Alleged Founder of the satirical Church of the SubGenius.[15]

★ Sai Gunturi '07. 2003 National Spelling Bee champion

★ Robert Hoffman '65. Co-Founder, National Lampoon. Businessman. [16]

★ David Hudgins '83. Television writer and producer. [17]

★ Clark Hunt '83. CEO, Kansas City Chiefs. [18]

★ Steve Jurvetson '85. Venture Capitalist, Draper Fisher Jurvetson.

★ Tommy Lee Jones '65. Actor. [19]

★ David Laney '67. Chairman, Amtrak. [20]

★ Michael R. Levy '64. Founder and Publisher, Texas Monthly [21]

★ Doug Mankoff '81 Independent Film Producer [22]

★ Rhett Miller '89. Musician, Old 97's. [23]

★ Steve Miller '61. Musician. [24]

★ Dr. Philip O'Bryan Montgomery '37. Physician, prominent in the Dallas area. [25]

★ Dr. Alan Stern '75, NASA scientist and head of the New Horizons mission to Pluto

★ Kalen Thornton '00. Linebacker, Dallas Cowboys. [26]

★ Michael Weiss - Jazz pianist, composer. Attended 1st - 7th grade. [27]

★ Luke Wilson '90. Actor. [28]

★ Owen Wilson - Actor, expelled sophomore year. [29]

★ Craig Zisk '83. Television Director.

External links



★ St. Mark's School of Texas website

★ Peterson's Guide to Private Schools

★ St. Mark's Course Listing

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