What’s recently happened?
The series of events that La Lumiere School (La Lu) sponsored in La Porte was a success! This summer, La Lu decided to sponsor La Porte’s Arts in the Park. This is the second year that La Lu has sponsored Arts in the Park. This year, La Lu sponsored Free Byrd on July 25 at 7 p.m. This performance kicked off the annual Lake Fest in La Porte. The Lake Fest is a three-day event with art, food, and music.
La Lu is also creating new clubs for the upcoming school year. This year, La Lu is aiming for a greater number of student-led and organized clubs that cater to student interests. While some La Lu clubs from previous years will return such as Film Club, faculty and students are working to bring back some past clubs.
Film Club, which is currently run by Senior Academic Prefect and Film Club Organizer Ilaria von Eschenbach, teaches students how to become film critics. In the club, the students watch movies and then talk together in a discussion-based format about the things that they liked and disliked about the film.
“Film club is a space for us to watch films across a variety of genres and styles where we discuss their techniques and common themes. Some of our recent watches have included ‘12 Angry Men’ (1957), ‘La Vita é Bella’ (1997), and ‘JoJo Rabbit' (2019),” von Eschenback said.
French Teacher Bridget Sendziak and some students are working to bring back La Lu’s student newspaper this year as a club not only for this year but for the years to come as well. The newspaper, entitled “The Torch,” is aiming for a way to display student work in a newsletter format to inform students, faculty, administrators, parents, and alumni of current events happening at La Lu.
What’s coming up?
As the summer is coming to an end, the prefects, faculty, and administrators at La Lu have been hard at work preparing for the upcoming school year. As the school year starts on August 18, La Lu will start the annual three-day orientation. The orientation is full of fun activities, meeting your advisor, sports practices, and meeting new classmates for the first time while finally reuniting with past classmates.
Throughout the orientation week, students will experience a series of activities such as ice breakers, grade-level activities, heads cup activities, and advisory sessions to start the school year off on the right foot.
The ice breakers, done in both heads cup, grade level, and advisory sessions, will ensure that all students have the opportunity to meet new friends, classmates, and peers throughout different sectors of the school as a whole.
Grade-level activities, being brought back to orientation week this year, will allow students to experience fun activities, such as a grade-level field day, together before starting academics. The grade-level field day will have various activities for the students to participate in together.
Starting off the school year, the heads cup games are always some of the most memorable and fun. The week always starts off with a rock, paper, scissors tournament with the whole school. Following that is the scavenger hunt. The scavenger hunt, run by Physics and Calculus Teacher Ken Andert, has been a La Lu tradition for decades.
“It is so hectic but so fun to run around the school to find and complete the various challenges,” Senior Anne Kuehn said.
To end orientation week, the final heads cup activity is always the soccer shootout. While the soccer shootout is one of the more athletic events that takes place during the orientation week, it not only celebrates the end of orientation week, it also celebrates the beginning of the fall sports seasons for both the Girls and Boys Soccer teams, the Girls Volleyball team, Boys and Girls Cross Country teams, and the Boys Tennis team.
After orientation week ends, the school year starts. However, the fun does not stop there. On Friday, August 23, La Lu will have a beach bash on Lake La Lumiere. The beach bash will have fun activities such as volleyball, swimming, yard games, a bonfire, and ice cream by Frosty Boy.
Community member spotlight:
Doug Cassell has been the current athletic trainer at La Lu since February of 2023. Prior to coming to La Lu, Cassell worked at Glenville State University, Purdue University North Central (now Purdue University Northwest), Calumet College of St. Joseph, and Bethel University at the collegiate level. He also worked at La Porte High School and Winamac Community High School. Growing up in West Virginia, Cassell earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Charleston in West Virginia and his masters from Marshall University.
Since living in the La Porte area since 2003, Cassell chose to work at La Lu. He chose La Lu due to its location, rich history, and traditions.
Since working at La Lu, Cassell has fully embraced his unique position. Cassell works directly with almost all student-athletes throughout the school year through pre and post-game treatments, along with managing the equipment and uniforms needed for the sports to continue. In addition, Cassell has also taken it upon himself to help the maintenance team this summer.
“I believe that when you are a part of a school, you should do anything and everything to help the school grow and be the best place it can be for the students, staff, and yourself,” Cassell said.
Outside of La Lu, Cassell enjoys camping, fishing, and spending time with his family. Cassell also works with travel softball and baseball tournaments, soccer tournaments, Nike Elite Youth Basketball League basketball tournaments, and University Athletic Association basketball tournaments in Indianapolis. At the tournaments, Cassell will work with five-10 courts/fields to ensure they all have the necessary treatment to ensure all of the athletes prevent injury in every way possible.