St. Thomas Aquinas High School is a

coeducation 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 ...

Catholic 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 ...

high school in Dover, New Hampshire, United States, in the

Roman Catholic Diocese of Manchester The Diocese of Manchester la, Diocensis Manchesteriensis is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory or diocese of the Catholic Church in the region of New England in the United States, comprising the entire state of New Hampshire. It is a suf ...

. It has a student population of approximately 455 and a faculty of 55.

History

In August 1959, Matthew F. Brady,

Bishop A bishop is an ordained clergy member who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance of dioceses. The role or office of bishop is ca ...

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...

, opened the fundraising drive for St. Thomas Aquinas High School. When Bishop Brady suddenly died, Cardinal Richard Cushing of

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

kept his last project alive. Cardinal Cushing greeted the new bishop, Ernest J. Primeau, with the advice, "Go on with St. Thomas Aquinas." The diocesan co-educational school opened in 1960 with a freshman class only. Serving seventeen parishes in southeastern

New Hampshire New Hampshire is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec t ...

, the school was staffed by two diocesan priests, seven School Sisters of Notre Dame and one layman. When STA graduated its class of 219 in 1964, the faculty had grown to six priests, twenty-one sisters (requiring a new convent) and four lay teachers. By the late 1960s, enrollment topped nine hundred students, making St. Thomas Aquinas a Class L power in athletics. A nationwide trend toward declining enrollments, combined with the higher cost of salaries as the number of teaching sisters fell, brought St. Thomas through a series of challenges throughout the 1970s. Beginning in the mid-1980s through the 1990s St. Thomas Aquinas showed a steady and dramatic increase in enrollment. During this period the school enhanced and expanded the academic and extracurricular programs available to students. The convent, named Notre Dame Hall, was converted to provide additional classroom space and to house the Guidance Department, which includes offices, a library, and a conference area. Today the school is at its maximum enrollment.

Athletics

The school's sports teams compete as the "Saints". Teams of note include

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 ...

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 and

diving Diving most often refers to: * Diving (sport), the sport of jumping into deep water * Underwater diving, human activity underwater for recreational or occupational purposes Diving or Dive may also refer to: Sports * Dive (American football), a ...

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice hock ...

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 ...

lacrosse Lacrosse is a team sport played with a lacrosse stick and a lacrosse ball. It is the oldest organized sport in North America, with its origins with the indigenous people of North America as early as the 12th century. The game was extensively ...

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 ...

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 ...

alpine skiing Alpine skiing, or downhill skiing, is the pastime of sliding down snow-covered slopes on skis with fixed-heel bindings, unlike other types of skiing ( cross-country, Telemark, or ski jumping), which use skis with free-heel bindings. Whether for ...

, cross country, and

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 ...

. The Ice Hockey team competes as one of the four Catholic schools in the state in the NHIAA Division II. In 2011–12, STA was state champion in football (Div IV), girls' swimming, baseball (Div II), and girls' tennis (Div II). The school was a finalist in girls' volleyball and boys' lacrosse. Tennis player Julia Keenan became the first high school athlete in New Hampshire to win four straight individual titles in any sport. In 2012–13, the girls' volleyball team repeated as state finalists and the girls' tennis team repeated as state champions. Overall, St. Thomas Aquinas has won 30 state team championships in the last 16 years, along with dozens of individual titles.

Notable alumni

Among St. Thomas Aquinas' graduates are

Ron Fortier Ron is a shortening of the name Ronald. Ron or RON may also refer to: Arts and media * Big Ron (''EastEnders''), a TV character * Ron (''King of Fighters''), a video game character *Ron Douglas, the protagonist in ''Lucky Stiff'' played by Joe A ...

, comic book and pulp writer best known for his work on ''

The Green Hornet The Green Hornet is a superhero created in 1936 by George W. Trendle and Fran Striker, with input from radio director James Jewell. Since his 1930s radio debut, the character has appeared in numerous serialized dramas in a wide variety of media ...

'',

Brendan DuBois Brendan DuBois is an American mystery fiction and suspense writer who has twice won a Shamus Award for Best Short Story of the Year. He also had his short story "The Dark Snow'" published in ''Best American Mystery Stories of the Century'', edite ...

, author of numerous novels including ''

Resurrection Day ''Resurrection Day'' is a novel written by Brendan DuBois in 1999. In its alternate history, the Cuban Missile Crisis escalated to a full-scale war, the Soviet Union is devastated, and the United States has been reduced to a third-rate power tha ...

'', Olympic runner Rachel Schneider and Baltimore Orioles' baseball player Ryan McKenna.

References

External links

Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Saint Thomas Aquinas High School (Dover, New Hampshire) Catholic secondary schools in New Hampshire Buildings and structures in Dover, New Hampshire Educational institutions established in 1960 Schools in Strafford County, New Hampshire 1960 establishments in New Hampshire Roman Catholic Diocese of Manchester Private high schools in New Hampshire