Pensacola resident Mike Waldo ’70 meets with alumni director Mat Grau ’68 about forming an official alumni chapter in the Pensacola-Mobile area.

The effort to add alumni chapters around the country is moving more rapidly than a Jesuit homily.

Alumni director Mat Grau ’68 is in the process of forming a team of Blue Jays who will lead the school’s official alumni effort in the Pensacola-Mobile-Destin area.

In early August, Grau met with Mike Waldo ’70, a Pensacola resident and class leader, to plan a kick-off event on Friday, September 26. That evening the Blue Jay football team will be on the road — way down the road —  to face the Tigers of Pensacola High School. The event will consist of a gathering at a Pensacola restaurant for alumni and their spouses in the Pensacola-Mobile-Destin area and will include presentations by the office of institutional advancement and Jesuit president Fr. Anthony McGinn, S.J. ’66.

“We ask our alumni chapter leaders to do two things: keep our Blue Jays in their area connected to each other and to keep them connected to their alma mater in New Orleans,” Grau said, “and almost all of them are doing very well at both.”

The concept is working particularly well in Houston, Tampa-St. Petersburg, and Lafayette, which held its first function on Saturday, August 23. The Baton Rouge alumni chapter will hold its first event on Thursday, Oct. 18. Efforts are underway to form leadership teams in Austin, Texas and Denver, Colorado.

Anyone interested in attending the event in Pensacola or serving on the Florida-Alabama leadership team should contact Mat Grau at grau@jesuitnola.org or (504) 483-3840.