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St. Catherine's Church Opening Highlands County's First Catholic School

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By JIM KONKOLY

Highlands Today

Published: August 15, 2008

SEBRING - On Aug. 18, the new school year opens not only for all public schools in Highlands County, but also for the students attending the first Catholic school in the county.

St. Catherine's School will open for students in kindergarten, first grade and second grade, plus a pre-school program for 3- and 4-year-old children, in two buildings on the church grounds at 882 Bay St.

A voluntary pre-kindergarten program will be added after Jan. 1, said the school's principal, Patricia Timko.

Catholics attending St. Catherine Church have been asking for a Catholic school for at least 36 years, Timko said.

Timko knows that because she moved to Sebring 36 years ago, after serving as a sister in the Sisters of St. Joseph of St. Augustine, an order of nuns which has its mother house in St. Augustine.

Timko left the order in 1971 after serving as a sister for 13 years. She married later that year. She and husband Tim have three grown children and will become grandparents for the first time near year's end. Their first grandchild is due in December.

"When I came here 36 years ago, I asked Father (the church's priest), and other people asked him, too, 'When are we going to have a Catholic school?'" Timko said.

That long-held wish will become a reality in three days. Timko said the school is designed to grow by adding one new grade level every year, until there is not only a complete Catholic grade school through grade eight, but also a full four-year Catholic high school.

"This is the fourteenth Catholic school in the Diocese of Venice," Timko said.

People have asked for a Catholic School, and are enrolling their children in this school, for several reasons, Timko said.

"Many people felt we need a Catholic school because we need to be able to teach our faith and morals to our children, so that they can grow up in the faith," she said. Another wish by local Catholics, she said, was for a school with the type of discipline that has long been standard in Catholic schools.

Registration is still open. For more information, call Timko at 863-414-0811 or go to the school's Web site: www.stcathe.com.

Jim Konkoly can be reached at 863-386-5855 or by e-mail at jkonkoly@highlandstoday.com

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