World News
Delaware Catholic school finds solution to naming controversy
Published: August 14, 2006
CLAYMONT, Del. (CNS) -- A Delaware Catholic high school's new student life center will bear the names of two of its former headmasters, the school announced after weeks of controversy over the naming of the facility. Wilmington developer Louis Capano Jr. will donate an unrestricted $500,000 to the capital campaign of Archmere Academy in Claymont, which is in the Diocese of Wilmington. He cut back his original $1 million donation after protests from many in the Archmere community forced him to relinquish his right to have the building named in honor of his parents. The center will be named the McLaughlin/Mullen Student Life Center after two Norbertine priests: Father Joseph P. McLaughlin, Archmere's headmaster from 1982 to 1996 and school chaplain since 2001, and Father Timothy Mullen, headmaster from 1996 until his death in 2004. A plaque outside the center's main entrance will acknowledge Capano's contribution in memory of his late father, Louis Capano Sr., a respected home builder who died in 1982, and in honor of his mother, Marguerite, who is 82 and lives in Wilmington. Plans to name the building after Capano's parents drew heavy opposition from a group of alumni, parents and students. Louis Capano Jr.'s older brother, Thomas, an Archmere graduate and high-profile Wilmington attorney, was convicted in the 1996 killing of Anne Marie Fahey, 30, after she broke off a romantic relationship. Louis Jr. and a third brother, Gerard, received probation after they cooperated with authorities and admitted they had helped cover up the crime.
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