O'Hara Catholic School is a private,

coeducational 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 ...

Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

K–8 school in

Eugene, Oregon Eugene ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Lane County, Oregon, United States. It is located at the southern end of the Willamette Valley, near the confluence of the McKenzie River (Oregon), McKenzie and Willamette River, Willamette rivers, ...

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, serving ten parishes of the

Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Portland in Oregon The Archdiocese of Portland in Oregon (''Archidioecesis Portlandensis in Oregonia'') is a Latin Church archdiocese of the Catholic Church in western Oregon in the United States. Established in 1846, it was the second Catholic archdiocese establi ...

. It was originally established in 1889 as the

parochial school A parochial school is a private school, private Primary school, primary or secondary school affiliated with a religious organization, and whose curriculum includes general religious education in addition to secular subjects, such as science, mathem ...

for St. Mary Roman Catholic Church in downtown Eugene, and became an area school in 1971. It is accredited through

Western Catholic Educational Association The Western Catholic Educational Association (WCEA) is a private educational accreditation agency for elementary and secondary Catholic schools in Western United States. History It was founded in 1957 in San Francisco. For the 2022–23 academi ...

History

Fr. Francis S. Beck (pastor from 1887 to 1894) saw the need to establish a Catholic school in the Eugene area. He arranged for some Benedictine Sisters from Mt. Angel to run a school in Eugene from a "four-room building which faced Willamette Street."Gimpl, Sr. Caroline, S.N.J.M. et al. ''St. Mary Parish Centennial: St. Mary Catholic Church 1887-1987''. Express Press Printing and Graphics, Eugene, Oregon, 1987. p. 2. The sisters arrived in 1889. The school was called the "Academy of Our Lady of Victory," affectionately known as St. Mary School. Later in 1895, the

Sisters of Mercy The Sisters of Mercy is a religious institute for women in the Catholic Church. It was founded in 1831 in Dublin, Ireland, by Catherine McAuley. In 2019, the institute had about 6,200 Religious sister, sisters worldwide, organized into a number ...

took over for the school. During Fr. John A. Moran's time as pastor (from 1911 to 1920), the Sisters of Mercy took over the Eugene General Hospital on College Hill in 1912.Gimpl, Sr. Caroline, S.N.J.M. et al. ''St. Mary Parish Centennial: St. Mary Catholic Church 1887-1987''. Express Press Printing and Graphics, Eugene, Oregon, 1987. p. 9. Consequently, Fr. Moran arranged to have six Sisters of the Holy Names come to run the school in 1916. In 1919, Fr. Moran had purchased property in the West 11th Avenue block between Charnelton and Lincoln streets. Later, Fr. Edwin V. O'Hara (pastor from 1920 to 1929) would move the Holy Names sisters in 1921 to the house at 1116 Charnelton St., which is currently part of the Poole-Larsen Funeral Chapel. The school building was moved to northeast corner of 11th and Lincoln.Gimpl, Sr. Caroline, S.N.J.M. et al. ''St. Mary Parish Centennial: St. Mary Catholic Church 1887-1987''. Express Press Printing and Graphics, Eugene, Oregon, 1987. p. 11-12. In 1921, the State Superintendent of Schools, J. A. Churchill, would accept St. Mary as a "standard school" of the State of Oregon.Gimpl, Sr. Caroline, S.N.J.M. et al. ''St. Mary Parish Centennial: St. Mary Catholic Church 1887-1987''. Express Press Printing and Graphics, Eugene, Oregon, 1987. p. 12. During the time of Fr. Edmund Murnane (pastor from 1950 to 1969) an eight-classroom addition to St. Francis High School was built on the property on 18th Avenue and Jefferson Street for a junior high school, which was used for the upper grades of St. Mary School. It was called St. Mary's Junior High School.Gimpl, Sr. Caroline, S.N.J.M. et al. ''St. Mary Parish Centennial: St. Mary Catholic Church 1887-1987''. Express Press Printing and Graphics, Eugene, Oregon, 1987. p. 25. Work began on the additions in January 1955. St. Francis High School was relocated to what is now Marist High School. All of St. Mary school was moved to the location on 18th and Jefferson in June 1969. Under Fr. Emil H. Kies (pastor from 1969 to 1987), St. Mary Grade School became an area school in which "participating parishes selected the lay members of a policy-making school board and each parish agreed to subsidize those students of St. Mary's School who lived within its boundaries."Gimpl, Sr. Caroline, S.N.J.M. et al. ''St. Mary Parish Centennial: St. Mary Catholic Church 1887-1987''. Express Press Printing and Graphics, Eugene, Oregon, 1987. p. 29. The plan was accepted in 1971. It was in the fall of 1978 that the school was renamed O'Hara Catholic School in honor of Bishop Edwin V. O'Hara, a former pastor of St. Mary's Parish and School. In the late 1960s, the school ceased to be the "sisters' school" with the decline of religious vocations and the increase of lay teachers.Gimpl, Sr. Caroline, S.N.J.M. et al. ''St. Mary Parish Centennial: St. Mary Catholic Church 1887-1987''. Express Press Printing and Graphics, Eugene, Oregon, 1987. p. 38. Today O'Hara Catholic School is staffed completely by lay teachers with religious and diocesan priests coming regularly to visit the classrooms.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:O'Hara Catholic School Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Portland in Oregon 1889 establishments in Oregon Schools in Lane County, Oregon Education in Eugene, Oregon Catholic schools in the United States Educational institutions established in 1889