HUNTERSVILLE — The marching band played and loud cheers erupted as Christ the King High School stakeholders shoveled fertile, black soil on a plot of grass surrounding the statue of the school’s namesake, beginning a $12 million expansion project that is projected to be completed in 14 months.
The addition includes two classrooms, a band room, a shop and a cafeteria. Additionally, spaces in existing buildings such as the cafeteria, kitchen and shop will be transformed into classrooms.
As Principal Mark Tolcher explained, “This new extension will provide more space for teachers to help transform the lives of students and help these young people grow into the sons and daughters they were created to be.”
The addition will also feature a fitness training area, administrative offices, a larger entry point to the gym and a north lobby equipped with concession stands, ticket booths and a Crusaders Spirit Store.
The additional 17,000 square feet will allow the school to accommodate up to 650 students instead of its current capacity of 450.
“We are really excited about the beauty of the building, the size of the building, and the grandeur of the building,” Chist the King President Carl Semmler told the crowd of teachers, clergy, students and community members.
Semmler quoted Psalm 127, "But, ‘the Lord does not build the house in vain that the builders labor.’ What this building is really all about is the smaller Church…the children that form the Body of Christ. They are the future of the church. They’re the real edifice… this building is going to create the Church of the future.”
The Oct. 2 groundbreaking was also attended by Bishop Michael Martin who celebrated an All School Mass prior to the event.
Bishop Martin emphasized that point in his earlier homily, which focused on the Feast of Guardian Angels.
He asked, “Don’t you feel like I would probably have a better homily if I had a student up here assisting me?” and the congregation adamantly agreed.
Sophomore Noah was called upon but did not know the answer to Bishop Martin’s question: What the word sophomore meant. He was able to phone a friend, ironically on this Feast day a freshman named Raphael, who responded with the correct oxymoron, “wise fool.”
The bishop used the exchange to illustrate his point that God wants us to guard one another.
“God does not want us to go through this life alone; instead, he gives us people to go through this life with,” the bishop said. “God is trying to teach us, the wise fools that we are, this very simple message…that God doesn’t leave us alone.”
God gives us guardian angels who remain with us all the time, he said, as well us people who sometimes take on their qualities in our lives – spouses, children and best friends.
“Am I my brothers’ keeper?” He asked and then responded. “Yes!”
“We are going to break ground for a new building today. The school’s growing; it is really great,” the bishop remarked. But he cautioned that he “wouldn’t give you a dime for it, not a dime, if I didn’t think what we were building here was students who were more concerned with building up the good in their classmates. That’s the school I want to build.”
He instructed the students to look out for one another, and to imagine what the school would look like if everyone became a guardian.
“Imagine a CTK where everyone has someone, where everyone is reaching out amid the difference to hold someone else accountable,” the bishop noted.
“That is what Christ the King came to establish on this Earth: a place where everyone, everyone, didn’t follow Him like a mascot but rather worshiped Him as Lord and accepted the responsibility of caring for those around us with a greater love…that’s the school we want to build.”
Principal Julie Thornley of St. Mark in Huntersville, a feeder school to CTK, with 98% of their students becoming future Crusaders, called the groundbreaking a blessing.
St. Mark Dean of Students and mother of two Crusaders herself, Hillary Shores, agreed with the bishop. “There is so much goodness in this school, and such a platform for building up the faith, I am just proud of it.”
— Lisa M Geraci. Photos by Troy C. Hull
