By PAT NEWMAN
Staff Writer

Grading is underway at the 54-acre site of Our Lady of Mercy, the new Catholic high school in north Fayette County, set to open in fall 2000.

Sister Dawn Gear, Grey Nun of the Sacred Heart, has been named principal of the south side's first Catholic secondary school, which is on Ga. Highway 138 at Holyfield Highway.

Gear will be visiting Catholic parishes in the area this month and next to present the facts about Our Lady of Mercy. The first information night was Sept. 21 at St. John the Evangelist Catholic School in Hapeville. Sept. 26, she will appear at Our Lady of Vietnam Catholic Church in Riverdale at 10 a.m. and Oct. 3 at 7:30 p.m. at Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Peachtree City.

Ground was broken March 3 for the college preparatory school, which will accommodate 450 students in grades 9-12. For the first year, only the ninth and tenth grades will be open for enrollment.

Gear believes that the success of Our Lady of Mercy will depend on local parents giving her and the school's handpicked staff a chance to educate the whole child in an environment that espouses gospel values and strong academics. “The success will be there,” she said recently during one of her weekly visits to the construction site. “They will be getting in on the ground floor... building a community,” she said.

Developing a school from its early stages to its manifestation as a fully staffed facility is nothing new to Gear. In fact, Our Lady of Mercy is the third Catholic school she has founded. Not content to wait until the foundation is laid and the walls take shape, Gear has her own hard hat which she wears during consults with the construction crew. She is attuned to every detail of the building phase, from the placement of electric outlets to the color of the cafeteria tiles.

Gear took on her new assignment in January, after serving as the founding principal of The Archbishop Thomas A. Donnellan School in Atlanta. She was also the guiding force and first principal of Saint John Neumann Regional Catholic School in Atlanta from 1986-1996. Prior to that, she was a teacher and assistant dean of students and studies at Saint Pius X Catholic High School in Atlanta.

Gear has been an educator for 35 years, with 24 of those years spent in Atlanta.

Our Lady of Mercy will follow the blueprint of Blessed Trinity High School being built in Roswell by the Catholic Archdiocese of Atlanta. The campus will include a chapel, cafeteria, media center and library, learning lab, rooms for band, choral, drama and dance activities, an auditorium, and facilities for special ministries and guidance programs. Gear estimated $1.4 million was tagged for technology, which would include five computers in each classroom and 11 computers in the science lab.

Athletic facilities will include a gymnasium, regulation size fields for football, track, soccer, baseball and softball plus tennis. Tuition for the 2000-2001 academic year is $6,500. Prospective students must complete an application, an essay and take the Secondary School Admission Test.