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caption, page 3:
Sale Completed
The sale of Marianapolis Prep School to the Trinity Foundation was completed last week. Left to right: Marianapolis Headmistress Marilyn Ebbitt; Ken Ebbitt, chairman of the Trinity Foundation board; Marian Fr. Tim Roth, MIC, chair of Theology; Marian Br. Donald Schaefer, MIC; Trinity Foundation board member and attorney, Alyson Aleman Odden ’89, of Borner, Fraser & Aleman in Putnam. Courtesy photo.
Sale of
Marianapolis
completed
THOMPSON --- The Trinity Foundation, the organization that has run Marianapolis Preparatory School since 2001, announced that its purchase of the co-ed private school from the Congregation of Marian Fathers of the Immaculate Conception became official on Feb. 11. “Plans for the purchase were set in motion over nine years ago,” said Trinity Foundation Chairman of the Board Ken Ebbitt of Woodstock, himself a graduate of the Class of 1960, “when the Foundation agreed to assume administrative and financial responsibility of the School with the Marians continuing to be responsible for the religious aspects of school life.”
In 2001, the Marians concluded that they no longer had the religious personnel and resources to continue to run the school. A group of alumni, faculty and parents formed the Trinity Foundation and assumed operations of the day and boarding school, with the plan that, in time, the Foundation would purchase the school. In the interim years the school has continued to flourish, with enrollment increasing from 238 students in 2001 to the 322 students Marianapolis serves today in grades 9-12 and postgraduate.
Included in the nearly $5 million sale is: 127 acres of the 257-acre campus, including school buildings, dorms and athletic facilities. The Marian Order retains the monastery and associated buildings, and the remaining acreage. The Marians will continue to reside on campus and remain an integral part of the Marianapolis community, and Marian Father Tim Roth, MIC, will continue to serve as chair of the Theology Department and school chaplain. For most people at the school, added Ebbitt, “it will be business as usual with the Marians and the Foundation continuing in their respective roles.”
“We are pleased to see our mission preserved for future generations,” said Roth, himself a 28-year veteran of the school and former headmaster. Founded in 1926 as a school for Lithuanian boys, today the school serves day students from 35 communities throughout Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island, as well as 142 American and international boarding students representing 15 foreign countries.
The site of the school was formerly the Ream Estate, owned by industrialist Norman Ream. The property and its Carolyn Hall were acquired by the Marians in 1931, when they moved Marianapolis (then known as Marian Hills College) from Illinois to Connecticut. The school began as a prep school and college, becoming Marianapolis Academy in 1946 and Marianapolis Preparatory School in 1948. Marianapolis was an all-boys school since its inception in 1926 through 1974 when the first coed class was enrolled.
CAPTION “PHOTO1”: Left to right: Marianapolis Headmistress Marilyn Ebbitt; Ken Ebbitt, Chairman of the Trinity Foundation Board; Marian Fr. Tim Roth, MIC, chair of Theology, and Marian Br. Donald Schaefer, MIC, and Trinity Foundation board member and attorney, Alyson Aleman Odden’89, of Borner, Fraser & Aleman in Putnam.