COLONIA JUAREZ, Mexico — The church-owned Academia
Juarez in held graduation ceremonites May 23 for 45 high
school students, most of whom have college plans.
__IMAGE1__"Academia Juarez is one of
the two schools that the church has in Mexico," said Gaby Herrera, who said she has been
on the academy's staff almost eight years. "The students come from Colonia Juarez
and the nearby Nuevo Casas Grandes and Colonia Dublan."Some 75 percent of the
student body of 450 is LDS; only 10 percent are not Hispanic. The academy has 30
faculty members. "The majority of the faculty and staff have lived in the Mormon
colonies most of their lives and graduated from the academy," Herrera
said.
Nineteenth-century Mormon
colonizers founded Colonia Juarez community in northern Mexico in 1885, opening what was initially named the
Juarez Stake Academy in 1897. "It was first instituted as a vocational school.
Today it includes junior and high school and is part of the Church Education
System. It provides all of its students with daily seminary classes," Herrera
said.