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Monsignor Robert M. Nolan Catholic High School
- 6 days ago
- 5 min read
Updated: 15 hours ago
Administered by the Society of Mary and Sisters of St. Mary of Namur
Est. 1961
In 1960, the Amon G. Carter Foundation donated 50+ acres on Fort Worth’s eastside to the Dallas Diocese to build a new Catholic high school on Bridge Street. At a cost of two million dollars, the school and gym were built in addition to two separate residences for The Sisters of St. Mary of Namur and The Marianists.
Ruth Carter Johnson Stevenson, daughter of Nenetta and Amon G. Carter, Jr., named the school in honor of Monsignor Robert M. Nolan, her parents’ beloved and long-term pastor at St. Patrick’s Cathedral from 1907 to 1939.
In 1961, 397 students opened the school: 291 girls from OLV (an all-girls school) and 106 freshman boys from Laneri (an all-boys school). They remained in separate gender-specific classes in the new building. They were governed by two separate administrations, a Co-Institutional school.
There were three corridors: A-Hall for the girls, C-Hall for the boys, and B-Hall for science, language, art and drafting labs. It was originally designed to accommodate 600 total students in two separate institutions; an all-boys division from Laneri High School and an all-girls division from Our Lady of Victory Academy with separate administrations, all housed in one facility.
Two courtyards separated the three corridors, and two administrations governed two separate gender-specific schools: Br. John Kurz, SM, from the Society of Mary (Marianists), was principal for the boys’ division, and Sr. Elizabeth Parr, SSNM, from the Sisters of St. Mary of Namur, was principal for the girls’ division. Both religious orders lived on the campus in separate custom-built convent/residences.
1962 was the first-year students would graduate from the conjoined high schools called Victory High School. The administration from OLV, run by the Sisters of St. Mary of Namur, held the accreditation documents, so both the boys division and the girls division graduated from this Co-Institutional high school named after Our Lady of Victory. It would be another year before the Co-Institutional high school would officially be renamed Monsignor Robert M. Nolan Catholic High School and it remained Co-Institutional until 1969.
At that time, Nolan became the only accredited Catholic College Preparatory High School in Tarrant County with 20 feeder schools. It was still in the Diocese of Dallas. It was not until 1969 that the Diocese of Fort Worth was created.
In 1969, it was decided that overseeing two separate high schools under one roof was redundant, and the Marianists agreed to be responsible for sponsoring and managing both divisions. It was at this time, for the first time, that classes became Co-Educational.
The boys from Laneri had been educated for 41 years by the Benedictine brothers and priests from Subiaco and the girls from OLV had been educated by the Sisters of St. Mary of Namur for 52 years. However, when Nolan was formed, the Marianists took the place of the Benedictines.
Once Nolan became Co-Educational, the Marianists took over the sponsorship and administration of the one united Catholic school in the Diocese of Fort Worth that no longer separated the boys and girls Divisions. Dozens of Marianist brothers and priests served Nolan for 53 years. Fr. Richard Villa, SM, was the final Marianist president of the school in 2014.
The history of the Marianists goes back to the aftermath of the bloody French Revolution in 1789, when Catholicism was battered and threatened. In the early years of the revolution, William Joseph Chaminade, a diocesan priest, conducted a clandestine ministry in Bordeaux, France. He was driven into exile in Saragossa, Spain, where he prayed every day at the shrine of Our Lady of the Pillar, continuing his lifelong devotion to the Blessed Mother.
He returned to France in 1800 and began forming small community faith groups based on the perfect discipleship of Mary and he placed these groups under Mary’s patronage. By October 1817, faithful men from these communities formed the first men in the Society of Mary. They had originally landed in the Unites States in 1849, settling in Cincinnati, Ohio. They moved north to Dayton where they established St. Mary’s School for Boys in 1850. St. Mary’s would become the University of Dayton. They arrived in Texas in 1852, founding St. Mary’s University in San Antonio.
Following the Benedictines from Laneri, they formed the administration of the Boys Division in 1961 at Msgr. Robert M. Nolan Catholic High School. The Marianists had an earnest and devoted mission in education and other ministries marked by their Charism, a gift of the Holy Spirit, which inculcates the following core values:
Brothers and Priests carry out God’s service to others with equal status in the Society.
They view Mary as the model of Discipleship.
They pray and support each other as well as external lay-communities.
Their Mission is to bring Christ to the world.
Nolan remained un-airconditioned until the late 80’s. This coincided with the development of the natural bowl-shaped practice field to become a real football stadium and competitive track, named the Doskocil Stadium.
Several of the feeder schools had trouble filling their 7th and 8th grades, so Nolan absorbed these 7th and 8th grade students from 1987-1999 under a unique administration with Sr. Paul O’Reilly, SSMN, as Principal. Later, two new corridors were added to accommodate the additional students: D-Hall with five new classrooms, computer labs, the Mary Mother of God Chapel and a library, and E-Hall with seven new classrooms designed particularly for the junior high. In 1999, the high school reached capacity even with the new hall additions, and Nolan Closed the 7th and 8th Grade Junior High and those grades went back to their feeder schools.
Most students who graduated before 1992 just called the school Nolan High School. The Nolan Administration was proud to be a Catholic high school and renamed the school Nolan Catholic High School. Bro. Oscar Vasquez, SM beloved principal, modeled the Marianist Charism in the late 1990’s/early 2000’s. Later he returned to St. Louis and was ordained a Marianist Priest.
In an effort to keep the Nolan’s campus competitive and meeting the needs of the students the Hartnett Arena/Gymnasium was built in 2004, and natatorium (pool), weight room, and Integrated Design Engineer and Art (IDEA) building was built in 2021.
The Sisters of St. Mary of Namur (1961–2000) and the Marianists (1961–2014) faithfully served Nolan Catholic through their decades of dedicated ministry. Today, Nolan Catholic High School is a Fort Worth diocesan school under lay administrators, carrying forward the legacy of its founders.
