From a basement to the Cade campus: Episcopal School of Acadiana honors first headmaster

The Episcopal School of Acadiana – which is coming up on 44 years of operation in August – honored its first headmaster at its Cade campus Monday.

The Rev. Charles Rodney Smith was ESA’s headmaster from 1979 through 1981, the school’s first two years of operations. During his time, he helped orchestrate the move of the school from the basement of the First Baptist Church in Lafayette to the nearly 100-acre property in Cade where the upper school resides today.

“The work of Fr. Smith and ESA’s founding Board of Trustees and faculty formed a legacy that continues to influence ESA to this day,” said Paul Baker, ESA’s current headmaster. “ESA maintains its emphasis on academic excellence, spiritual growth, and a community of trust grounded in an Honor Code. Our current mission - to instill in every student the habits of scholarship and honor - is a reflection of the values the school embraced in 1979.

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“We thank Fr. Smith and his colleagues for laying the groundwork for this institution, which has become a valuable asset in the Acadiana community and an incentive for families and businesses considering a move to our region.”

Smith attended The Episcopal Seminary of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee, before becoming the assistant headmaster at St. Andrew’s Episcopal School in Jackson, Mississippi, and Trinity Episcopal School in New Orleans. Smith then moved to Lafayette to serve as the headmaster of Ascension Day School, which was an elementary and middle school at the time.

In a news release, ESA said it was during his time as the head of Ascension Day School that Smith saw a need for an Episcopal upper school in Acadiana.

ESA opened in August 1979, originally operating sixth through twelfth grades. The school opened with 11 teachers and 87 students in grades sixth through ninth, with plans to expand by one grade over each of the three years.

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Over the years, ESA grew to include a lower school with Pre-K through fifth grades. The original lower school opened on the grounds of St. Barnabas Episcopal Church in 2004 before moving to its current location – the former LAFCO Boats Company – in 2010.

The upper school’s campus – located amidst the oak trees and sugarcane fields in Cade – was donated to the Episcopal Diocese of Western Louisiana by the Smedes-Jardine family to create an Episcopal school.

“Rod envisioned a challenging curriculum and a faculty who cared deeply about each child and about helping students find and develop their talents,” said Bill Lasseigne, a 1985 ESA alumnus who has spearheaded the effort to honor Smith for his contributions to ESA.

“Rod provided me and my ESA classmates an academic context and a thoughtful process to understand religion, and through his actions brought the value of a spiritual foundation to life. He created a sense of wanting me to be the best person I could be – for myself and those around me.”

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This article originally appeared on Lafayette Daily Advertiser: Episcopal School of Acadiana honors first headmaster