Each year, many students make the transition from Saint Paschal’s to larger-scale schools like Mayfield High School. It can be intimidating for some students, and that’s why Mayfield is trying to ease the change.

The Mayfield High School Spanish Club organized a play for the students of Saint Paschal’s, hoping to teach them the ins and outs of high school, and make them feel more comfortable with the transition. It took place on Friday, March 11 during the school day.

Club advisor Phillip Deaton believes this trip will broaden the club’s purpose and also bring previous Paschal students back together. He said, “We were trying to really work on our club not just staying in school, but kind of getting out into the community more. And we know a lot of our students come in from Saint Paschal’s or Saint Francis.”

Deaton also noticed a lot of club members attended Saint Paschal’s. “We have majority of the people in our club that came from Saint Paschals. So, we decided to reach out to them and see if we could do something,” said Deaton.

The play is called Las Manzanas de Señor Peabody, which translates to Mr. Peabody’s Apples, and it was chosen specifically to make a difference for the students. Deaton said, “It’s a book written by Madonna, and it’s talking about the damage that can be caused by gossip.”

Deaton chose this play because he wanted to set an example of what not to do when you get to high school. He said, “The message is a really good message, especially with middle schoolers and them coming into high school. You know you have a clean slate and you don’t want to start it off on the wrong foot by causing all kinds of history freshman year.”

Spanish Club member and former Saint Paschal student Alex Gephart is looking forward to the trip back to her old school. “It [was] a fun experience to get to go back and see all of my old teachers,” said Gephart. Gephart also hopes she built bonds and encouraged the students to take Spanish classes in the future.

In addition to the performance, the Spanish Club also created an enjoyable atmosphere and got everyone involved. “We [taught] them some of the vocab that they [needed] to understand the story before we [acted] it out. And then, at the end we [did] a bingo game with the vocab [to] teach them a couple new words,” said Deaton.

Next year the club plans to extend to other schools and make this trip more permanent. Deaton said, “We’re hoping to kind of make this an annual thing where you can go and get into the school, hang out with the middle schoolers a little bit more. We could even expand to Saint Francis and do like twice a year.”

Gephart’s sister, Lexie Gephart, has one of the lead roles in the play. She also attended Saint Paschal’s and is excited to return. “Not only will this benefit the incoming middle schoolers next school year, but it will also expand the limits and the purpose of the club, making it an all around beneficial experience for everyone,” said Lexie.

“I hope to kind of build relationships between the two schools first of all, between the students of those schools,” Deaton said. “So hopefully, we’re kind of taking a dual purpose here as a way of starting and creating friendships between some of our upper classman and the freshman coming up to our school.”

Overall, the play was a success. Most students caught onto the message of the story quickly. Hopefully this means gossip and lies will be prevented as they move on in their education.

The club intends on returning to the school next year with a new story and lesson to teach.