Nikki Carlson Havre Daily News photos@havredailynews.com
Instead of dressing up as ghost and goblins, St. Jude Thaddeus School students honored Catholic saints on Friday, Oct. 31, during the first-annual All Saints Day Celebration. Pre-kindergarten through eighthgrade St. Jude students marched from the All Saints Day Mass ceremony Friday morning, Oct. 31, to the St. Jude Parish Center singing "When The Saints Go Marching In." Music teacher Kirt Miller played the song on his trumpet during the parade. Inside the Parish Center, students honored a few of the Catholic saints. "All Saints Day honors and recognizes all of the saints of the church, many of them who were martyrs," school secretary Kathy Tilleman said. "The church sets this day aside to celebrate over 10,000 recognized saints. Historically, All Saints Day was known as Hallomas." Each of the grades chose a saint, or different saints, to research and honor in a presentation to family members and faculty at the Parish Center. The kindergarten and fifth-grade classes chose St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland, and wore shamrock masks to honor him. The shamrock to St. Patrick symbolized the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. The first-grade presented information about St. Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of animals and ecology. First-graders wore animal masks to honor St. Francis. Second-graders dressed up in doctors masks, caps and stethoscopes to honor Sts. Cosmos and Damian, twin brothers who were physicians. Pre-K and third-graders chose St. Therese of the Child of Jesus. St. Therese instructed people that they didn't have to do heroic deeds, but rather small acts of kindness. The fourth-grade selected four St. Jude employees for their Saints Among Us presentation. They interviewed and read brief biographies to the crowd about Father Robert Grosch, principal Carol Ortman, bus driver Rick Graham of the maintenance department and Tilleman. The sixth-graders made sugar skulls in memory of family members who have died. They also wrote brief biographies about their loved ones for people to read. Sugar skulls are a tradition in the Latin American holiday La Dia de Los Muertos The Day of the Dead. Along with The Day of the Dead holiday, the seventh-graders made huge plaster masks of different saints they each chose and attached information about the saints to the back of the masks. Their teacher Ligia Arango said the over-sized masks symbolized the saints' souls and are worn in The Day of the Dead parade in Latin America. "(It shows that) the saints' souls are bigger than themselves," Arango said. The eighth-grade students each chose a different saint to highlight and designed posters about the saint. The posters were worn by the students durIng the celebration Friday. The posters included the saints' birth years, year they died, pictures of the saints and other interesting information about the saints. Saints chosen by the eighth-grade, included Sts. Cosmos and Damian; St. Faith, the patron saint of pilgrims, prisoners and soldiers; St. Francis of Assisi; St. Nicholas of Myrn, the patron saint of children, sailors and fishermen; St. Mark, who contributed to the writings of the Gospel; St. Cristin, the patron saint of shoemakers; St. Jessica, the patron s a int o f s o re eye s ; S t . Christopher, the patron saint of travelers; St. Conan, the patron saint of Lorne; St. Elizabeth, the patron saint of bakers and the homeless; St. Bernardino of Siena, the patron saint of advertisers; and St. George, the patron saint of the Boy Scouts. The celebration at St. Jude was deemed a success by all. Afterwards, students and family members had cupcakes and juice. Classes let out at 1 p.m. in honor of the celebration.
