The Benedictine monks of Mary Mother of the Church, Benedictine Abbey, in Goochland, want to further develop the 50 acres they own at 12829 River Road. The plan, still in its early stages, is to build a new monastery and renovate their current building as the new home for Benedictine High School, an all-boys college preparatory high school founded in Richmond in 1911. Benedictine is owned and operated by the Benedictine Society of Virginia, and the high school’s athletic fields are already located at the Goochland abbey.

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Benedictine is a part of the fabric of th city of Richmond.  I know time changes all things, but I really feel for future Cadets who would not have the experience of attending the school on Sheppard Street.  The history in that building is thick. Classes can be taught in any location, but the Benedictine experience is unique in so many ways, most notably in the imparting of tradition and loyalty. The building on Sheppard Street is alive and that total experience can not be the same without it. I thank God for the chance to have spent five years coaching in Memorial Gym. My bet is that the BHS family is not quite done with this.  Good luck fellas.

As an alumni of Benedictine and St. Benedicts I feel that moving Benedictine away from the location it has stood proudly in since 1911 is a slap in the face to current students, Alumni, and the many many people in the muesum district and others who consider themselves BHS FAMILY!  To make someone who has a daughter at St. Gertrudes a son at Benedictine and a child at St. Benedicts drive that far just to drop off their children makes no sense, to stop the traditions at BHS was bad enough now they want to just destroy the building itself makes me realize that BHS will be getting no money or support from me.

Expect the end of much alumni support if Benedictine is moved out of the Fan. The entire Benedictine atmosphere will be lost with this move. Did anyone vote on this decision? I am very disappointed.

I feel that the decision to move BHS to the Abbey would be a terrible decision. We would be taking close to 100 years of tradition and simply saying so long to it. I feel certain that a great majority of my fellow Cadets would agree that those walls and the Memorial Gym are sacred and contain a little piece of all of us.

As a member of the BHS class of 2005, I think it would be a tragedy to move Benedictine H.S. from its current location.  Putting aside all the previously mentioned facts about the school’s tradition and the gym, this is a bad idea because it moves it away from it’s sister school, St. Gertrude’s. 

Those two schools are so intertwined that by moving one of them away, you destroy both schools.  First, you destroy the traditions at BHS that rely upon SGHS, such as the Sponsors program.  Second, you destroy the numerous clubs and activities that are collaborations of both SGHS and BHS students.  And third, you destroy the entire social structure of those two schools.  They thrive so well right now as they are because the two student bodies can mix and mingle because they are so close.  Take that away, and you lose a major incentive for any prospective student to attend either school.  That’s not even including the many families with children who attend both schools that would be forced to take their children to two separate locations every morning just to get their kids to school.  By moving BHS, alumni with children of different gender would have to choose between sending their sons to Benedictine or sending their daughters to St. Gertrude, since logistically they can’t do both.

Both schools would suffer greatly from this move.  And as a final point, what is Benedictine High School without it’s trademark bell tower?  I beg the powers that be to please no go through with this plan, because all you would be doing is destroying the great traditions of two schools, a neighborhood, and the lives of those who grew up through them.

There is absolutely no reason to move Benedictinge High School.  There is so much tradition at that school.  Save BHS

There is nothing positive that can come from moving Benedictine to the Abbey.  Many alumni including myself are extremely upset with this course of action and are willing to do just about anything to preserve Benedictine’s location on Sheppard Street.  We have all proudly invested a great deal of ourselves in the traditions instilled in Benedictine High School and the school building itself is a symbol of those traditions, everything from the bell tower to the Benedictine B on the center of “Coach Rut Court”.  Everyone knows that B because it is where we spun our last plate together as a class before graduating.  If the Benedictine Monks choose to move the high school, they will choose to basically end Benedictine High School.  There is no feasible way for Benedictine to exist outside of it’s current walls.  If it is moved to the Abbey, you might as well change the name because there is no way it can be the same there as it is now and has been for almost a century. If any alumni wish to coordinate in order to form some kind of petition or letter, feel free to get in touch with me, we CANNOT let this happen.

I really hope the school does not move out to the Abbey.  So much of the school’s character is about location.  I could not imagine my experience at Benedictine not in the Fan.  What about the gym?  Please don’t do this!!

I do not understand why they would move to the Abbey. Countless alumni are furious over this announcement. We have always heard all of this talk and it never escalated to much more than rumor. This is past rumor, this is actually happening. I feel like this will drive a vast majority of alumni support away from the school. Benedictine has been in the Fan for almost 100 years and moving it out to the Abbey would be like starting over. It would not feel like Benedictine High School to all of the past alumni and present students. The tradition of Benedictine Memorial Gym alone is enough to keep the school where it is. The names in the rafters, “Coach Rut Court,“ the atmosphere at basketball games. How can you leave that place? I do not understand how you could leave and I know for a fact I am not the only one. Do not be suprised to see plenty of backlash from this decision.

As an alumni of Benedictine High School, I can say that any move of the school will destroy much of the grand tradition that Benedictine Cadets are so proud of. Many of my fellow alumni are very upset about this and we hope that the school will reconsider destroying almost one hundred years of tradition.

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