Saint Joseph Academy, sometimes referred to as St. Joe or SJA, is a

private school Private or privates may refer to: Music * " In Private", by Dusty Springfield from the 1990 album ''Reputation'' * Private (band), a Denmark-based band * "Private" (Ryōko Hirosue song), from the 1999 album ''Private'', written and also recorde ...

conducted by the Marist Brothers of the Schools. It is located in

Brownsville, Texas Brownsville () is a city in Cameron County in the U.S. state of Texas. It is on the western Gulf Coast in South Texas, adjacent to the border with Matamoros, Mexico. The city covers , and has a population of 186,738 as of the 2020 census. It ...

, United States, and serves junior high and high school students of the lower

Rio Grande Valley The Lower Rio Grande Valley ( es, Valle del Río Grande), commonly known as the Rio Grande Valley or locally as the Valley or RGV, is a region spanning the border of Texas and Mexico located in a floodplain of the Rio Grande near its mouth. The ...

and Matamoros, Tamaulipas, Mexico. The school is located in the

Roman Catholic Diocese of Brownsville The Roman Catholic Diocese of Brownsville ( la, Dioecesis Brownsvillensis, es, Diócesis de Brownsville) is a Latin Church suffragan diocese in the ecclesiastical province of the Metropolitan Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston, in Texas, USA. The ...

History

St. Joseph Academy was founded in 1865 by the

Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate The Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate (OMI) is a missionary religious congregation in the Catholic Church. It was founded on January 25, 1816, by Eugène de Mazenod, a French priest born in Aix-en-Provence in the south of France on August 1, ...

in the downtown area of

. The school closed and re-opened many times under the Oblates in its earliest years. In 1906, however, the

Marist Brothers The Marist Brothers of the Schools, commonly known as simply the Marist Brothers, is an international community of Catholic religious institute of brothers. In 1817, St. Marcellin Champagnat, a Marist priest from France, founded the Marist Brother ...

arrived from

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

and re-opened St. Joseph Academy, and it has remained open ever since. Initially, SJA was an all-male elementary school; and in 1926 a three-story building was constructed, known as the "Old Saint Joseph", where the

International Bank of Commerce International Bank of Commerce (IBC) is a state chartered bank owned by International Bancshares Corporation headquartered in Laredo, Texas (United States). It is one of the largest banks based in Texas, and is the 83rd largest U.S. bank by ass ...

now stands in downtown. In 1930, the first high school class graduated from St. Joseph, and by 1940, the Sisters of the Holy Ghost assumed the administration of the elementary school. The new campus, found on ''101 St. Joseph Drive'' in Brownsville, Texas, relocated in 1959 from its historic downtown campus to its current campus on the wooded and picturesque banks of a resaca (a regional Spanish word for

oxbow lake An oxbow lake is a U-shaped lake or pool that forms when a wide meander of a river is cut off, creating a free-standing body of water. In South Texas, oxbows left by the Rio Grande are called '' resacas''. In Australia, oxbow lakes are call ...

), serving boys from

7th 7 (seven) is the natural number following 6 and preceding 8. It is the only prime number preceding a cube (algebra), cube. As an early prime number in the series of positive integers, the number seven has greatly symbolic associations in religion ...

12th 12 (twelve) is the natural number following 11 and preceding 13. Twelve is a superior highly composite number, divisible by 2, 3, 4, and 6. It is the number of years required for an orbital period of Jupiter. It is central to many systems ...

grade. In addition, the original site became the parochial school for Sacred Heart Church (established 1912), under the direction of the religious order now known as the Sisters of the Holy Spirit and Mary Immaculate. The new campus contained many architectural innovations, including: separate low-profile classroom buildings centered around a large garden area of native flora, reminiscent of Mexican

Alameda Central Alameda Central is a public urban park in downtown Mexico City. Created in 1592, the Alameda Central is the oldest public park in the Americas. It is located in Cuauhtémoc borough, adjacent to the Palacio de Bellas Artes, between Juárez Avenue ...

urban parks; unique offset vents and

jalousie window A jalousie window (, ) or louvered window (Australia, New Zealand, Pacific Islands, Southeast Asia, United Kingdom) is a window composed of parallel glass, acrylic, or wooden louvres set in a frame. The louvres are joined onto a track so that ...

s designed to maximize the cooling effect of southerly breezes; and the gymnasium with its award-winning design (highly unusual at the time) by which the entire weight of the structure is supported by four curved roof beams that meet at the center of the building. The school had been all-male until 1970, when Saint Joseph became

co-educational Mixed-sex education, also known as mixed-gender education, co-education, or coeducation (abbreviated to co-ed or coed), is a system of education where males and females are educated together. Whereas single-sex education was more common up to t ...

and admitted its first female students into the 7th, 8th, and 9th grades. In 1998, the school switched from now-defunct TCIL to

TAPPS The Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools, or TAPPS, is an organization headquartered in the Lone Star Tower at Texas Motor Speedway Fort Worth, Texas. It was formerly headquartered at the Salado Civic Center in Salado, Texas. Fou ...

, and by 2004, the construction of the new administration and middle school buildings began. On October 27, 2005, the buildings' dedication took place in the middle school gymnasium. On 8 April 2008, the Mexican pop group,

RBD RBD is a Mexican Latin pop group that gained popularity from Televisa's telenovela ''Rebelde''. The group achieved international success from 2004 until their separation in 2009 and sold over 15 million records worldwide, making them one of ...

, played at a private concert in Saint Joseph Academy's gymnasium after several students won a competition sponsored by

Verizon Wireless Verizon is an American wireless network operator that previously operated as a separate division of Verizon Communications under the name Verizon Wireless. In a 2019 reorganization, Verizon moved the wireless products and services into the divi ...

. By June 2012, the whole campus in SJA got

wireless network A wireless network is a computer network that uses wireless data connections between network nodes. Wireless networking is a method by which homes, telecommunications networks and business installations avoid the costly process of introducing c ...

connection.

Mission statement

St. Joseph Academy, conducted by the

with the mission to serve the children of the lower portion of the

, dedicates to provide a "religious and moral formation" and a college preparatory education under the tradition of the

Roman Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

. According to the official page of the school, the SJA "endeavors" to form students that will succeed in their university studies, understand and love

Jesus Christ Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religious ...

, and participate in the mission of the Church, including Catholic social teaching on the

preferential option for the poor The option for the poor, or the preferential option for the poor, is one of the newer principles of the Catholic social teaching, as articulated in the latter half of the 20th century; it is also a theological emphasis in Methodism. The concept w ...

. Every year, about 100 students and more than a dozen faculty members travel to several rural communities to do community services and conduct religious classes. The school also has a community service requirement for each student during the school year, and that chore is set up by the religion professors. In the early 2000s, the missions program at St. Joseph travelled to

Tula, Tamaulipas Tula is a town located in Tula Municipality in the state of Tamaulipas. History The city was founded on 22 July 1617 by the Franciscan friar Juan Baptist of Mollinedo thus usually is considered the oldest city in the state of Tamaulipas. In 2011 ...

every year; in 2012, they traveled to a Native American reservation near

Gallup, New Mexico Zuni: ''Kalabwaki'' , settlement_type = City , nickname = "Indian Capital of the World" , motto = , image_skyline = Gallup, New Mexico.jpg , imagesize = 250px , image_caption ...

on a 10-day trip.

Athletics

At a high school level, SJA has

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding tea ...

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

cheerleading Cheerleading is an activity in which the participants (called cheerleaders) cheer for their team as a form of encouragement. It can range from chanting slogans to intense physical activity. It can be performed to motivate sports teams, to ente ...

dance team A dance squad or dance team, sometimes called a pom squad or song team, is a team of participants that participates in competitive dance. A dance squad can also include: a jazz squad, ballet squad, or any kind of religion dance squad. Dance squads ...

, cross country,

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping wi ...

soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

swimming Swimming is the self-propulsion of a person through water, or other liquid, usually for recreation, sport, exercise, or survival. Locomotion is achieved through coordinated movement of the limbs and the body to achieve hydrodynamic thrust that r ...

tennis Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball ...

, and

track and field Track and field is a sport that includes athletic contests based on running, jumping, and throwing skills. The name is derived from where the sport takes place, a running track and a grass field for the throwing and some of the jumping events ...

. In junior high, which is only from seventh to eighth grade, basketball, football, cross country, track and field and

volleyball Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules. It has been a part of the official program of the Summ ...

are available. In 2021, the boys Cross Country team, coached by Teddy Lopez, earned second place in the TAPPS State Meet in the 5A division. The team was coached by Teddy Lopez along with Mike Schlater and Louie Tijerina. This team was led by Pedro Cardenas and was made up of the district winning team Alejandro Ramirez, Jorge Albores, Juan Gonzalez, Mauricio Gonzalez, and Julio Cesar Silguero.

Communities represented

Students attending Saint Joseph Academy come from the following communities in the Matamoros–Brownsville metropolitan area. ;Cities in Mexico *

Matamoros, Tamaulipas Matamoros, officially known as Heroica Matamoros, is a city in the northeastern Mexican state of Tamaulipas, and the municipal seat of the homonymous municipality. It is on the southern bank of the Rio Grande, directly across the border from Br ...

;Cities in the U.S. (Texas)

Notable alumni

Robert Rodriguez (physician) Robert M. Rodriguez is an American emergency physician working at the San Francisco General Hospital. He is a professor of emergency medicine at the UCSF School of Medicine and was a member of the COVID-19 Advisory Board of U.S. president Joe Bid ...

— is an American emergency physician working at the

San Francisco General Hospital The Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center (ZSFG) is a Public hospital in San Francisco, California, under the purview of the city's Department of Public Health. It serves as the only Level I Trauma Ce ...

. He is a professor of emergency medicine at the

UCSF School of Medicine The UCSF School of Medicine is the medical school of the University of California, San Francisco and is located at the base of Mount Sutro on the Parnassus Heights campus in San Francisco, California. Founded in 1864 by Hugh Toland, it is the o ...

and is a member of the COVID-19 Advisory Board of U.S. president Joe Biden. *

Filemon Vela Jr. Filemón Bartolomé Vela Jr. ( ; born February 13, 1963) is an American lobbyist, lawyer and politician who served as the U.S. representative for from 2013 until his resignation in 2022. He is a member of the Democratic Party. Vela was also vic ...

—

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

U.S. Representative for 34th congressional district since 2013. * Jose Rolando Olvera Jr. —

District Judge

United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas The United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas (in case citations, S.D. Tex.) is the federal district court with jurisdiction over the southeastern part of Texas. The court's headquarters is in Houston, Texas and has six ad ...

. *

Julian Schnabel Julian Schnabel (born October 26, 1951) is an American painter and filmmaker. In the 1980s, he received international attention for his "plate paintings" — with broken ceramic plates set onto large-scale paintings. Since the 1990s, he has been ...

— "neo-expressionist" painter and

Academy Award The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...

-nominated,

Golden Globe The Golden Globe Awards are accolades bestowed by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association beginning in January 1944, recognizing excellence in both American and international film and television. Beginning in 2022, there are 105 members of t ...

winner and director of '' The Diving Bell and the Butterfly''. *

Tony Garza Antonio Oscar "Tony" Garza Jr. (born July 7, 1959) is an American lawyer and diplomat who was the United States Ambassador to Mexico from 2002 to 2009 under President George W. Bush. In recognition of his work, Mexico bestowed on him the Águil ...

—

Ambassador to

, Former

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...

Secretary of State. *

Federico Peña Federico Fabian Peña (born March 15, 1947) is an American politician and attorney who served as the 12th United States secretary of transportation from 1993 to 1997 and the 8th United States Secretary of Energy, United States secretary of energy ...

— U.S. Secretary of Transportation (1993-1997); U.S. Secretary of Energy (1997-1998); First Hispanic Mayor of Denver, CO. *

Bianca Marroquín Bianca Marroquín is a Mexican musical theatre and television actress known for being the first Mexican actress to have a starring role on Broadway theatre, Broadway. She has performed in the musical ''Chicago (musical), Chicago'' for over twenty ...

— is a Mexican

musical theatre Musical theatre is a form of theatrical performance that combines songs, spoken dialogue, acting and dance. The story and emotional content of a musical – humor, pathos, love, anger – are communicated through words, music, movemen ...

and

television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...

actress known as the first Latina to play in a starring role on

Broadway Broadway may refer to: Theatre * Broadway Theatre (disambiguation) * Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S. ** Broadway (Manhattan), the street **Broadway Theatre (53rd Stree ...

. * James Carlos Blake — prize-winning author of novels, novellas, short stories, and essays; current member of the Texas Institute of Letters. *

Buddy Garcia Hector Steven Garcia, known as H. S. "Buddy" Garcia (born June 16, 1967), is a former interim member of the Texas Railroad Commission, the elected body which regulates the oil and natural gas industries in Texas. Garcia was appointed to the commis ...

— appointed to the

Railroad Commission of Texas The Railroad Commission of Texas (RRC; also sometimes called the Texas Railroad Commission, TRC) is the state agency that regulates the oil industry, oil and gas industry, gas utilities, pipeline safety, safety in the liquefied petroleum gas indus ...

by Governor

Rick Perry James Richard Perry (born March 4, 1950) is an American politician who served as the 14th United States secretary of energy from 2017 to 2019 and as the 47th governor of Texas from 2000 to 2015. Perry also ran unsuccessfully for the Republica ...

on April 12, 2012. *

Rudy Ruiz Rudy Ruiz is a writer, advocate, and social entrepreneur. Ruiz is known for writing ''The Resurrection of Fulgencio Ramirez'' and ''Valley of Shadows'', magical realism novels which received critical acclaim and literary awards. In 2014, Ruiz auth ...

— Award-winning Latino author, entrepreneur and advocate * Joey Fischer — Senior student murdered in 1993; part of a murder case that brought national attention.

References

External links

Saint Joseph Academy website
{{authority control Marist Brothers schools Private middle schools in Texas Catholic secondary schools in Texas Education in Brownsville, Texas High schools in Cameron County, Texas