×
×
homepage logo

Genesis Classical Academy marks a milestone

Genesis will graduate its first class of seniors on Friday, May 24

By Fiona Green - Staff Writer | May 19, 2024

Genesis Classical Academy in Winnebago will graduate its first class of seniors on Friday, May 24. Genesis’s Class of 2024 is pictured above. In the back row, left to right, are Carter Gunzenhauser, Hailey Latourell and Eli Slater. In the front row are Levi James, left, and Wesley Meyer, right.

Genesis Classical Academy in Winnebago opened its doors in the fall of 2015, marking a watershed moment for the small town.

Nine years later, the school is celebrating another monumental event: the graduation of its first class of seniors.

Genesis was formed in 2015 when the Blue Earth Area School District closed its elementary school in Winnebago.

Shortly after the closure, a local group began exploring educational alternatives for their community.

As it happened, they soon met Renee Doyle, who was seeking a location for her nondenominational Christian, classical school, Genesis Classical Academy, which would offer children an education grounded in a solid academic and spiritual foundation.

Doyle’s educational philosophy is rooted in her years working for a member of Congress, comparing and contrasting academic performance under different systems of academic delivery.

She remembers being highly impressed by a classical school she observed in White Bear Lake.

“I was absolutely blown away,” she recalls. “These kids were light years ahead in character, academics and fitness.”

Doyle was inspired to start her own classical school, which eventually made its home in Winnebago.

Now, headmaster Doyle has served at the helm of Genesis since the school first opened its doors at the Heartland Senior Living campus in 2015.

Genesis educated 33 students in preschool through fourth grade that year, and since then it has added a grade level each successive year to accommodate its growing student body.

The school now educates 97 students from a 45-mile radius, hailing from communities as far away as Mankato, Albert Lea and Fairmont.

Genesis has grown in more than just numbers over the past nine years. The campus expanded significantly in the spring of 2020 when the school purchased the former Adolescent Treatment Center in Winnebago. Additionally, every-day, all-day preschool was added in the fall of 2022.

Genesis has also expanded its athletic and arts programs since 2015. The school recently forged a cooperative agreement for football with United South Central in the fall of 2023, and it has fielded teams in trap, girls volleyball, and boys and girls basketball.

Its students also compete in music competitions throughout southern Minnesota, and they will be competing in the Minnesota State High School Arts League next fall.

Additionally, recently-acquired land poses an exciting opportunity for a new facility.

“We really need a multipurpose building, but financially, we are just not there yet,” Doyle explains. “Just one person could come along and make that dream a reality.”

And, through all the changes, the school has faced the added challenge of hiring additional staff and developing a curriculum to accommodate a new grade level each year.

It is for this reason that the Class of 2024’s homeroom and logic and rhetoric teacher, Merilyn Yates, calls the seniors her ‘trailblazers.’ Each year, they have blazed the way for the students in grades below them.

The class of five says it has been an interesting experience leading the way for the schools’ younger grades.

“There’s some good and bad,” Carter Gunzenhauser explains, noting that while being the first in line means experiencing some trial-and-error, it also affords the unique opportunity of influencing the way things are done in the future.

Hailey Latourell, meanwhile, says she has enjoyed being a role model for younger students at Genesis.

“I think the younger kids really look up to us,” she considers, adding, “I think it’s cool to be able to go out and say I was in the first graduating class of Genesis.”

Gunzenhauser and Eli Slater, both of whom enrolled at Genesis as fourth graders in the fall of 2015, have been at the school since its first year of operation.

“My mom believed in the vision of the school,” Gunzenhauser recalls.

They were joined by Levi James and Wesley Meyer in sixth grade, and Latourell rounded out the Class of 2024 when she enrolled at Genesis in 10th grade.

The seniors have grown close over the years, and their small classes have cultivated a comfortable environment where discussion thrives.

“We’re a family at this point,” James explains.

The Class of 2024 has a variety of plans for the future. Latourell, for example, is interested in learning a trade such as welding.

“Welding has always interested me, and Winnebago Manufacturing has good beginning wages,” she says. “I want to be able to help provide for a family one day.”

James also plans to learn a trade by entering an apprenticeship program at Ron’s Plumbing, HVAC, & Electric.

“There is a lot of demand for trades, and specifically plumbing,” he reasons.

Meyer, a bass player, plans to pursue performing opportunities with his band, Blue Dirt Road, following graduation.

“Music is my passion,” he explains.

While Meyer, James and Latourell intend to stay in the Winnebago area, Gunzenhauser wants to earn his real estate license and pursue his career in the Mankato area.

Slater also plans to spend the next few years in Mankato, where he will attend Bethany Lutheran College to pursue legal studies.

He says he became interested in the field through his logic and rhetoric classes at Genesis.

“I think they prepared me well,” he considers. “Logic and rhetoric have a basis in argumentation.”

Yates also cites the students’ senior thesis projects, which were completed on topics related to current cultural issues, as a valuable means of preparing them for the future.

The students will present their theses on Saturday, May 18, in front of a panel of individuals who hold Master’s and doctoral degrees.

“It is their graduating test, if you will,” Doyle explains. “When you leave a school like ours, it’s not how much subject matter you know – it’s what you can do with what you learn.”

Doyle feels confident that the senior class represents the best of what Genesis has to offer.

“They’re incredible communicators,” she says. “My goal for them is that they’ll take that, and they’ll go conquer the world.”

She adds, “We think that our students coming out and graduating are going to be problem-solvers, not problem-makers.”

Meanwhile, Yates, who has taught the Class of 2024 since they were sixth graders, says it will be an emotional experience watching them cross the stage at graduation.

“They’ve been the test group, and they’ve been very willing,” she laughs. “I don’t know what I’m going to do without them when they graduate.”