Benedictine Military School Alumni Association

06/20/2026

I have a vivid recollection of the earliest times I ever saw the Seawright Drive campus when dad took us to see my St James cousin play parochial school football games out there in the late 1960s. Us little kids would run around the place like we owned it, and I remember that the eaves around the plaza looked pretty cool, and how the gym rose up over the plaza. We would press our nose against the glass and try to see into the academic building, and we'd check out the stage in the cafeteria. I remember liking the chapel, and of course all us little kids loved the moat! There were still fish in it back then! I'm sure it was the first time in my life that I ever actually noticed anything architectural.

At 6 or 7 we were too young, of course, to realize why we were impressed. We just all thought it was a really cool place. But it wasn't a fluke how we felt. It truly is special. Check out this 2011 article about the campus from long time Alumni Association board member, Bob Cuicevich, '86. And it's OK to feel proud when you do.

06/19/2026

Less than a week away. Seriously. You don't want to miss this one. BC Alumni Social – Bourbon and Ci**rs

Thursday June 25th 6:30 – 8:30pm at the Knights of Columbus (3 W. Liberty Street)

All BC Alumni and friends are invited to attend this inaugural event. For this event, we will be featuring select bourbons from Cathead Distillery’s whiskey and bourbon portfolio. Founded in 2010, Cathead Distillery is Mississippi's first legal distillery and true to their Delta Blues roots, supports seven separate blues, live music & cultural foundations across the Southeast with a portion of their revenue each year. Represented locally in Coastal Georgia and South Carolina by BC Alumnus, Josh Whelan '10, Josh has generously offered to donate several bottles from Cathead's Old Soul Small Batch and Single Barrel line-up as well as a few choice limited selections for this event.

You don’t have to be into Bourbon or Ci**rs to make it out, Dave Roberts ’76 will have plenty of other drink options at the bar!

We will have access to the outside porch area at the Knights so if you have a few ci**rs lying around and were looking for a reason to cut them, now is a great time to do so with other BC Alumni!

https://thebc400.myschoolapp.com/podium/default.aspx?t=36644&rid=56010

It's never not fun to be with your BC brothers. We look forward to seeing you there! Spread the word!

06/16/2026

Recent email from Dustin White, '14, about the Annual Campaign and about Homecoming Weekend below. We're just a couple of weeks away from wrapping up the fiscal year, and we need a strong push to top a million dollars again this year. Cadet Nation really showed up for the Alumni phase of the Campaign a few weeks ago, but there were still 11 classes with ZERO donors and quite a few others with less than 5. So, please step up and make sure your class doesn't wind up with a goose egg on the board. For our traditional monster classes, the Class of the Year Race is still wide open. It will take a strong finish to wind up on top, and don't forget this we will recognize the top class for each decade. A donation link is below! ALL IN!

I have two important pieces of information in this email, please read through it all. The second point is just for all the classes celebrating their reunions this fall (years ending in 1 and 6).

Benedictine Annual Fund 2025 – 2026: Class of the Year and Class of the Decade standings
- Attached to this email are the standings for the three categories, total dollars raised ($), number of donors ( #), and percentage of donors (%). Reminder that only the top ten in each category receive points. First place gets 10 points, second place is 9 points, and so on. The three categories are then all tallied up and that total is what is used to determine the winner. We will use all the class years to calculate class of the year and then separate the decades to find out the class of the decade winners.

- ***The number in the column Total is the number that is in BC’s system for how many alumni are in your class. If that number is not correct you must let me know and provide me with a class list.

- The Class of the Year and Class of the Decade winners are still anyone’s game! Please encourage your classmates to participate. Our fiscal year closes on June 30th which means all gifts received from now until then will be counted in the total. We must hit our goal, and we only have three weeks remaining. We are confident that our alumni will rise to the occasion! Thank you to all those who have already contributed this year! We have some guys in the class of 1975 already putting together a challenge gift idea for their classmates so it will be a tight race coming down to the wire!

https://www.thebc400.com/support-bc

BC Reunion Weekend 2026
- Classes ending in either a 1 or 6 are all invited to attend BC Reunion Weekend on October 23rd and 24th. If you have any questions at all about this event, please reach out to me. A short summary of the event:

- Friday night- BC Homecoming football game at Memorial Stadium. At halftime, all alumni celebrating reunions will walk onto the field, sing the fight song, and take a group photo in front of the fans.

- ***Friday morning: For those interested in golfing, Michael Doan ’00 and his classmates had their inaugural golf tournament last year that coincides with reunion weekend. I will have Michael reach out to all of you just so you have more information about the tournament, but the proceeds all go to a scholarship at BC in memory of their classmate. If you already plan on golfing with some classmates, you might as well do this since his crew handles all the organizing and supporting BC!

- Saturday 10/24 is the big event where we have everyone back at the school. Spouses are encouraged to attend, and the attire is business casual. The school handles the set up and breakdown of the event, food and drinks, and for those of you that are die hard college football fans, we will have TVs throughout the school with the games on that evening. Tickets are $50 per person, and the registration link is now live! It is extremely important that your classmates register well before this event. While we do accept walk ups, it makes my job a lot easier if we are organized beforehand. We have to bring a lot of food and alcohol to the school, and I don’t want to run out of either!

- Use this link to share with your classmates so they can register for the event!

- https://host.nxt.blackbaud.com/registration-form/?formId=7954bf90-61e4-42b7-8217-c5e4f71affd3&envId=p-3ZtWM_mpJUqFeb0ILzMOlA&zone=usa

06/06/2026

82 years ago. There are a few of the olds vets left, and there will be pictures in local papers, social media posts, stuff like that today, showing really old frail guys sitting in wheelchairs wearing American Legion hats. A large group of them is there in Normandy today, being celebrated by the locals. None of them is younger than 99. But no old guys jumped out of Dakotas, rode ships, or stormed beaches in Normandy that day. The average age of the men who fought at D-Day was 26. Many were only 17. Joseph Argenzio, Jr. was 17 when he landed on Bloody Omaha in the first wave that morning. The guys in front of him on the landing craft were mowed down when the ramp dropped. He went over the side and made it to the beach without his helmet and rifle. He served with his unit through the Normandy campaign and beyond. He fought in the Battle of the Bulge and helped liberate a concentration camp. He survived the war and lived until he was 82. Roy Talhelm was 17 when he parachuted into France with the 506th PIR of the 101rst Airborne Division. He faked his birthdate to join when he was 16. He was killed in action on the 8th in fighting around Carentan. He is buried at the American Cemetary above the beaches and left a baby daughter he never got to hold back home.

The oldest guy there that day was 56-year-old General Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. Yes, his dad was THAT Teddy Roosevelt. General Roosevelt was the Deputy Division Commander of the 4th Infantry Division and came ashore in one of the first LCVPs to land at Utah Beach. He was the only general to land on the beaches in the first wave (most of the commanding generals of the airborne divisions jumped earlier that morning with their troopers). Roosevelt survived that day but died of a heart attack about a month later while with his division in France. General Patton was one his pallbearers and called him one of the bravest men he had ever known.

By the end of the Longest Day on the Cotentin peninsula in Normandy France, the beachheads were secure, but they were not yet linked up. Many tough days were ahead including closing the Falaise Gap and trapping German Army Group B, the terrible storm that wrecked the beaches several days after the landing, and the battles in the hedgerows. Within days the Red Army would launch major attacks in the east to prevent the Germans from moving troops to reinforce the battle in France. 132,000 men landed on the beaches or died trying that day. Another 24,000 parachuted or rode gliders in. Hundreds of thousands more were on the thousands of ships and in the tens of thousands of planes in action that day. 12 Medals of Honor and 1 Victoria Cross were awarded that day. 9 posthumously. When that day ended, Rommel's strategy of defeating the invasion on the beaches had failed, and Germany's defeat was inevitable.

06/05/2026

Reunion Weekend for all SVA classes ending in 1 and 6 will be held on SVA's campus on Saturday, October 10th, and Sunday, October 11th. Early Bird Registration will open in JULY.

Hope to see you there!

06/05/2026

BC Brothers out there doing amazing things! Mac is c/o '19.

Congratulations to Benedictine Military School graduate Mac Kromenhoek!

06/04/2026

We have us a cool new Alumni Association event coming up later this month, and you should go! It's BC B&C at the KofC! And since it's never not fun to be with your BC brothers, you need to be there! Here is the sign-up link.

https://thebc400.myschoolapp.com/podium/default.aspx?t=36644&rid=56010