Honoring Fr. Smith

Fr. Smith served as ESA’s headmaster from 1979 through 1981, the school’s first two years. He steered the community through the 1979-1980 school year, when ESA was housed in the basement of the First Baptist Church in Lafayette. During that year, he oversaw preparations to move the school to the oak-lined campus nestled amid cane fields in Cade. The nearly 100-acre Cade property was donated to the Episcopal Diocese of Western Louisiana by the Smedes-Jardine family for the purpose of creating an Episcopal school with a challenging academic program and a commitment to community service. ESA remains the only diocesan school in the Episcopal Diocese of Western Louisiana. 

Originally established to serve students in sixth through twelfth grades, ESA opened in August of 1979 with eleven teachers and 87 students in grades six through nine, with plans to expand by one grade each of the next three years. Fr. Smith and the founding Board of Trustees emphasized three main pillars in creating the foundation for ESA: an exceptional academic program, an institution drawing on the history and traditions of the Christian church, and a solid athletic program with intramural and varsity teams. Over the years, the program grew to include ESA Lower School, with PK3 through fifth grades, which opened on the St. Barnabas Episcopal Church grounds in 2004, and moved to its current location, the former home of the LAFCO Boats Company, in 2010.