Joe and Mary Bauer
Alver and Jean Leighton and their nine children.
St. John’s Preparatory School honors two families with the Armor of Light Award
St. John’s Preparatory School recently named the 2013 recipients of the Armor of Light Award. Joe (Class of 1966) and Mary Bauer as well as Alver and Jean Leighton. More than 100 people attended the evening filled with prayer, music and laughter. The Legacy Dinner is Prep’s annual celebration of its founding on Nov. 10, 1857. Five Prep School-age students were the first to enroll in the new Benedictine school. The dinner is Prep’s opportunity to celebrate their alumni, friends and supporters.
The Bauers were nominated by Joe’s classmates from the Class of 1966 for their efforts to establish Quiet Oaks Hospice, a residential hospice care facility in St. Cloud. Joe and Mary have worked tirelessly to create a tranquil and comforting home dedicated to serving the terminally ill. Their welcoming spirit brought together fellow Prep alumni and community members to collaborate and provide professional expertise and financial assistance. Today Quiet Oaks is an invaluable resource for the terminally ill and their families.
The Leightons have been stalwart community servants in the St. Cloud area and give generously of their time, talent and treasure to civic and community affairs. They have dedicated their lives to a personal involvement in and commitment to higher education issues, religion and philanthropy. Sadly, Al passed away on June 28, 2012, but the impact he has made at Prep lives on. The Leightons have nine children, the youngest four attended Prep; Robert ’79, Mary Jo ‘80, Judith ’84 and Jeffrey ’88.
St. Joseph native Jessica Studniski, currently a senior at the College of St. Benedict, designs the sound effects on a sound board for a theater department production of “The Good Woman of Setzuan” which opens this week and runs through Nov. 24. She is researching bird calls, trumpet music, choir music, doors slamming, sounds of rain and thunder and many other effects which she will form into the sound plot. Most of the work is done with special computer programs.
