I have to admit I have a soft spot in my heart for Monsignor Bonner & Archbishop Prendergast High School.
No, I am not an alum.
But a few years ago this newspaper went to bat for the Catholic high school on the hill in Drexel Hill when the archdiocese recommended both schools be closed.
I still remember that Friday morning. It was Jan. 6, 2012.
The pastors of all the affected parishes and school leaders were huddle at Neumann University in Aston to get word of the recommendations from a special archdiocesan panel that reviewed schools across the region.
Most expected the two schools - Prendie for girls and Bonner for boys - would be told to drop their long tradition of single-sex education and be merged into one high school. They already shared common staff.
No one expected what happened next.
I had been tweeting updates all morning. When I posted an item that an expected breakfast meeting to brief local legislative leaders had been cancelled was not a good sign, I actually received a tweet back from then school Principal Bill Brannick. He said he understood I had a job to do but asked me to please be careful what I posted because the entire school was following my Twitter account.
What happened next proved it.
Just before noon we got the tip from a priest who was in the meeting. The schools where not going to be merged. Instead, it was the unthinkable. The recommendation was that both schools be closed.
It was that day I learned the power of social media. My Twitter account exploded.
In the next few months, this newspaper detailed the struggle to save the schools. I wrote columns and editorials. The paper covered every event and constantly publicized the fund-raising effort at the center of the crusade.
It worked. Not only did the Bonner-Prendie boosters save their school, they saved several others at the same time. Their method was picked up by other boosters and adopted by the archdiocese.
On the front page of the Daily Times on Saturday Feb. 25, 2012, a little more than a month after the archdiocese said both schools would be closed, we hailed word that they had been saved.
The front page contained one word: Amen!
Bonner and Prendie are back on the front page today, although not for the same reason, and likely not a page that anyone at the school is terribly fond of.
It also contains a single word: Busted.
It details a police operation that led to the arrest of five Bonner-Prendie students. You can read the story here. Students face drug and weapons charges. A loaded gun was found in one student's locker.
If there is a silver lining in this story, it is this. All of this was precipitated by a student who did the right thing. He witnessed a student brandish a gun during an alleged drug deal and notified school authorities. They in turn called police and the school was placed in lockdown and searched. That's when the drugs and gun was discovered.
I always make a point to tell people who are interested in getting stories into the Daily Times that it is a two-edged sword. Yes, we are interested in the good things that people in the county are doing. But I always warn them that it is entirely possible that a day will come when we will be calling them in not the best of circumstances.
Yesterday was one of those days at Bonner-Prendie.
I don't take any great joy in splashing that story on our front page. I don't back away from it either.
Bonner-Prendie will go on, just as they did when they were threatened with shutting the doors.
They have the same problems every other school has.
They are the problems young people are dealing with all across Delaware County.
It's my job to chronicle those stories, both the good and the bad.
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