Alumni Service Corps director, English teacher, and former director of student activities Mike Prados ’83 joins alumni director Mat Grau ’68 in accepting an award from the New Orleans Black Chorale. Photo courtesy of Jeremy Tauriac.

At its annual Black History Concert, the New Orleans Black Chorale honored Jesuit High School for its 2013 commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the school’s desegregation.The school received a handsome commemorative item in recognition of its efforts. The concert and award ceremony were held at Xavier University on Sunday, Feb. 23.

Alumni Director Mat Grau ’68 and Alumni Service Corps Director Mike Prados ’83, members of the committee that organized the commemoration, accepted the award on behalf of school president Fr. Raymond Fitzgerald ’76. Others who served on the integration anniversary committee are science teacher Lori Fasone, theology teacher Chris LaMothe, and principal Michael Giambelluca ’82, who is now the president of Creighton Prep in Omaha, Nebraska. Fasone also serves as the school’s coordinator of diversity. LaMothe is the moderator of Jesuit’s St. Peter Claver Club.

Jesuit received this award from the New Orleans Black Chorale in recognition of the school’s 50th Anniversary of Integration Celebration.

Within the Chorale’s celebration of “home” as society’s most cherished, most basic, and most important institution, the group recognized five institutions and individuals who serve as “role models whose contributions make our ‘home,’ New Orleans, a great place in which to live.” The other honorees were Dr. Beverly Wright, founder of the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice at Dillard University; the New Orleans Chapter of the “Buffalo Soldiers” (Ninth & Tenth Cavalry Association of the U.S. Army); Longue Vue Gardens and Dan Shore for their creation and presentation of Freedom Ride Opera; and Veronica Downs-Dorsey, musical leader of many local institutions including the Archdiocese of New Orleans, Xavier University, and the New Orleans public school system.