Courier-Post from Camden, New Jersey • Page 8

8a COURIER-POST, Friday Nov. 7, 1997 ng anigiriiini-Mffr tr i VI V. A. Camden Catholic A tradition for many families -1 If-? If 46 years ago: Students from freshman homeroom 6D pose outside Camden Catholic in 1951. Holy Cross from Notre Dame, taught the boys hence the athletic teams' Fighting Irish name.

A new building on 7th Street opened in 1924. On Easter Sunday 1960, fire destroyed the nearby former grammar school building and the Lyceum that housed the library and auditorium. Construction of a new building at the present location at Route 38 and Cuthbert Boulevard in Cherry Hill began in 1961 and the new school opened in 1962. A lot has changed since then. Enrollment has dropped, with the Baby Boom generation gone and nearby Catholic schools Paul VI and Bishop Eustace competing for the same students, Brown said.

For example, in 1924, there were 400 students and tuition was $30 a year. In 1966, there were 2,000 students and tuition was $175. Today, there are 830 students and tuition is $3,220. The school went from separate classes for boys and girls to mixing the sexes in the same class. When Brown attended in the 1960s, Camden Catholic's student body was made up predominantly of Catholics of Irish and Italian descent.

While still predominantly white and Catholic, the school today has more of a mix: 17 percent non-Catholic; 11.7 percent black; 12.7 percent Hispanic; and 3.7 percent Asian. Many social changes also are apparent, said Dave MacDonald, an English and media studies teacher who has taught at Camden Catholic since 1965. "It's become much harder to Continued from Page 1A library, with the future Mrs. Vaccaro kicking her future husband under the table or resting her feet on his lap. "You knew they were a couple already," Brown recalled with a smile.

Collingswood native Joseph Strasser, class of 1958, recalled that Bishop Eustace Preparatory School had just opened as he was getting ready to go to high school. Both schools were nearby, but there was no question which Strasser would attend. "The spirit of Camden Catholic is contagious," said Strasser, a retired Navy rear admiral and executive officer for the Penn State campus in Du Bois, Pa. "We were all very proud of Camden Catholic High School," he said. "We all thought it was the best high school." He met his wife at the school.

So did his parents, both from the Class of 1925. And Strasser's connections to the school go back even further. In the 18808, his grandfather helped Mother Joseph travel from Philadelphia to South Jersey. She was the first of the Sisters of Mercy nuns to teach at St. Mary's School and Institute on Broadway in Camden, a girls' finishing school.

The high school St. Mary's Academy separated from the rest of the private school in 1887, marking the official beginning of what is now Camden Catholic. The present name was adopted in 1921. In the early years, nuns from the Sisters of Mercy taught the girls. Until 1892, the Brothers of DONALD DiFRANCESCO against veto Bill Veto facing fight Continued from Page 1 A possible passage.

"It is an issue that is not going to go away. It is an issue that people are discussing at their breakfast tables," Tasy said. "I think they have heard the cry of the people." Bear Atwood, director of the New Jersey chapter of the National Organization for Women, said Collins' announcement was no surprise. Atwood noted that more than 92 percent of the voters on Tuesday backed Whitman or Democrat Jim McGreevey, who both oppose the abortion ban. "Obviously the Assembly is a tougher place, but certainly the election gives us a lot of reason to go back and talk to our pro-choice supporters," she said.

get in contact with parents, with both parents working," MacDonald said. "And you can't assume parents have the same last name as the children." The teaching staff has gone through even more drastic changes. "It was mostly nuns and priests," MacDonald said of the 1960s. "Lay teachers were in the minority." Now it's the opposite, with only one priest teaching and one nun teaching part-time, he said. Fewer women enter the teaching orders, such as the Sisters of Mercy, than in the past, Brown said.

Technology also has changed, with televisions in every classroom, a Camden Catholic TV studio and computers with access to the Internet, MacDonald said. Another major change is afoot this year. On Thanksgiving, Camden and opera mezzo-soprano Barbara Dever. One graduate, Andy was the animator for several Walt Disney movies. They include (The Rescuers and 77ie Fox and tke i Hound.

He was also art director' foriThe Lion King and Hercules' In a telephone interview from the Walt Disney Pictures studio in Burbank, Gaskill said his experience with Camden Catholic's extracurricular activi; ties helped him choose his career As a sophomore, played Uncle Max in the school' production of The Sound of Musk. When the curtains rose, he got an "enormous rush I think I got my show biz bug there." Like many high school stu-' dents, he wasn't appreciative of his education at the time. "I was glad to get out of there said Gaskill, now the parent 'of, two. "Looking back they had ft level of excellence not easily duplicated." Catholic will have the first home football game in its 110-year history. A new football field still under construction is scheduled to open just in time for the holiday game against Paul VI, said school spokeswoman Ellen Myers.

"It only took 110 years to get our own football field," she joked. During those 110 years, the school has educated a number of notables, among them: Don Casey, assistant coach for the New Jersey Nets and South Jersey Basketball Hall of Famer; Theresa Tull, U.S. ambassador to Guyana; U.S. District Court Judge Joseph Rodriguez, the state's sole Hispanic federal jurist; Joseph Nardi, Superior Court judge and former Camden mayor, James Beach, Camden County clerk and former freeholder, Bill Conaty, center for the Buffalo Bills; actress and former Miss New Jersey Bemice Massi; Wk 0 (kff ta I "The reality is if it passes, it is not constitutional, so we take it to a different level and get it beaten in the courts." The Assembly passed the bill i in May by a vote of 58-12, more than the 54 votes needed to pass i a veto override. It could be a closer call in the Senate.

The bill passed 25-13 in June, with two members absent. An override needs 27 votes to i pass. Veto overrides are rare. None have occurred since Whitman took office in 1994. Deal near Sale of mall 1 is expected 1 Continued from Page 1A i Eastgate Shopping Center right behind it.

But it serves fast-growing, upscale sections of Burling-i ton and Camden counties and is accessible by major roads such as Interstate 295 and Route 38. Its owners hoped that the 1993 post-fire renovations and a new tenant mix- would perk up traffic at the mall, but its parking lot and its corridors have remained I depressingly uncrowded. I 1 Heitman acknowledged that the mall was under-performing when it unveiled in September a i $120 million plan to expand and overhaul the 33-year-old mall. "We don't feel the mall is meeting the needs of residents," Wittman said when company officials unveiled the renovation 'Tf fm 1 1 1 mi 7 mm IE. ill lir -r ifi v-Mrrr---z; 111 Ui P.

1 1 1 1 V- Uri II, 'Ik A IflM mm 'P" 7 1 --j. 34 mi I I Mil plan to the township council. The plan includes the addition of a second floor of specialty shops, two new anchor stores and a 12- to 14-8creen movie theater. It would double the size of the mall. The plan was scheduled to be implemented in two phases.

Phase I would include demolition of Strawbridge's and replacement with a new store and the construction of a wing to house a Lord and Taylor. Phase II included a possible Nordstom store as the mall's second anchor store in a new, wing, a new movie theater (replacing the existing theater), a three-story parking garage and a second level of specialty stores in the main portion of the mall. Such an ambitious plan is what new owners typically undertake when they buy a down-at-the-heels, older mall, said retail analyst Holly Guthrie, vice president of Janney Montgomery Scott in Philadelphia. "A lot of time with older malls, when the current management team is undercapitalized or not investing, the mall loses traffic. "When new owners come in, they will typically completely renovate the mall to earn a return on the investment they have just made.

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