Kicking Off New Traditions!
By: Natalie Spalding, Senior Staff Writer
For the first time in SJA school history, all LACE families competed for a very special prize: the Academy Cup. On April 24, 2026, the LACE Olympics were held, and at the end, the Academy Cup was awarded to the family who earned the most points—congratulations to Facemaz, who won by one point!
The LACE Olympics event was an exciting way to wrap up the 2025-2026 school year, with tons of fun games and participants from every LACE family. Before the activities even started, these Olympics had already kicked off with a green and white themed spirit day dress down. Angels were decked out in their finest, sparkly, viridescent tutus and colorful jewelry, faces adorned with glittering face paint.
After the first period bell rang, it was time to commence the games!
Once everyone arrived in the gym, the games started off with scavenger hunt musical chairs, where lanyards, green shoes and earrings suddenly became of the highest priority to find. Following this was a marker race, in which one student per grade level—freshman, sophomore and junior—from each LACE worked together to rush to one side of the gym ASAP while holding markers between each other with only one finger. After the group race, each family offered their best candidate for pantyhose bowling to knock over plastic cups with a miniature bowling ball inside of a pantyhose on their head. The running was not over yet, though!
Next up was a mattress relay race, where one group from every LACE competed by running and jumping onto a mattress on the gym floor, the winner being the group that slid to the half court line the fastest. The games ended with a balloon catch challenge, where one person would blow up a balloon as fast as possible and release it, while standing across from them was a second person, ready to try and catch it. This game was particularly difficult! Wrapping up the event was a competition of best dressed, where each family picked the Angel with the most festive outfit to compete against the other LACEs’ best dressed!
The series of games was certainly entertaining, full of friendly spirit and exciting competition. Something important to keep in mind is that none of this would have happened without the coordination of St. Joe’s Spirit Club and LACE Matriarchs! Dr. Julia Wilkins Kohrmann, the director of Diversity, Culture and Climate—otherwise known as DCC—helped plan the games and comments on the matter.
“I think it was a really fun way to end the first year of the Academy Cup and I’m grateful to Ms. Meersman and Spirit Club for helping plan and coordinate the games,” said Dr. Wilkins Kohrmann.
The LACE Olympics did not end with the games. After the best dressed person was announced, the time came for an even bigger announcement—one Angels have been awaiting all year: the winner of the Academy Cup.
Throughout the year, the LACEs have been working to collect points by attending different SJA events and winning games much like the ones in the LACE Olympics. Those points have counted for their LACE family and added up, and the family with the most points at the end of the year wins the Academy Cup.
The victor of the 25-26 school year, after tons of effort, is Facemaz, having won by one point! The LACE family that ended up with one point less is Avila. Since Facemaz won the Academy Cup, they also earned the trophy to go with it, which will remain in Ms. Earley’s classroom until next April. Grace Laffey, SJA junior in Facemaz, shares her experience.
“[Winning] was such a good feeling because my LACE is so competitive and we get into that stuff,” said Grace, “Ms. Earley wanted us to win and we wanted to do it for her; we all really loved it.”
When their name was announced, Facemaz stormed the court in a blur of excitement.
All in all, this was an incredible start to a promising new tradition at SJA, with fun games, friendly competition and, as always, the uplifting school spirit of St. Joe’s.
