Immaculata High School to honor longtime supporters with 2022 Mackie Award

SOMERVILLE – As the parents of two adult children, both alumni of Immaculata High School, Brian and Maureen Cote understand that a strong foundation in high school can set the course for the rest of a student’s life. The couple first-handedly witnessed the strong foundation laid by Immaculata High School, first when their children attended the school as teenagers and even now into their adulthood, with their daughter, Patrice, now serving as a girls’ lacrosse coach and their son, Neil, assisting as a percussion instructor for the school’s marching band and indoor drumline. 

“My husband, Brian, and I began volunteering for Immaculata when our daughter, our oldest child, started school there,” said Maureen Cote, whose service to Immaculata High School spans more than two decades, a collective of her volunteer work and employment at the Catholic parochial school. “When we saw all the school offered and all it did for the students and their families, we knew we wanted to contribute in an even greater way.”

Between Maureen Cote’s tenure at the school, from where she recently retired as the director of campus ministry, and Brian Cote’s expansive volunteer portfolio, which includes “doing whatever she needs,” he said jokingly, together the couple totals nearly 50 years of service to the high school. 
In honor of their dedication and commitment, they will be presented with the prestigious Mackie Award during the annual Immaculata Golf Classic, to be held on Sept. 26 at Royce Brook Golf Club, 201 Hamilton Rd., Hillsborough. To learn more, to register or to sponsor the event, visit: immaculatahighschool.org/golfclassic.

First presented in 2008 and named after J. Brandon “Mackie” Maxwell Jr., the first recipient of the award, the Mackie Award honors individuals who have demonstrated a longstanding commitment to advancing the mission of the school through service to the school community.

“Immaculata High School means so much more to us than just the place where our children received a great education and a solid formation, it is the place where our children were welcomed in as family, where we were welcomed in as family,” said Maureen Cote, who now lives, together with her husband, just blocks away from the school, the place she calls her “home away from home.”

With Immaculate Conception Parish-owned properties nearby the Cote’s home on either side — the high school at one end of Mountain Avenue with Immaculate Conception Church and Immaculate Conception School, which serves students in pre-K through 8th grade, at the other — the couple is deeply-ingrained in the entire life of the parish community. When their children were young, they could be seen volunteering at the Catholic grade school, and now they can be regularly seen volunteering as ushers at Mass, faithfully serving on the John Paul II Cultural Arts Committee, and working each year to help with the Immaculate Conception Church Memorial Christmas Tree program. 

“If anyone is worthy of being named as Mackie Award recipients, it is the Cotes,” said Rich Rau ’89, who serves as the director of advancement for Immaculate Conception School and Immaculata High School and oversees the Immaculata Golf Classic. “This year, the Immaculata Golf Classic is being held during our Spartans Come Home weekend and, for the first time ever, we are inviting all Spartans to come home, not only our alumni, but their parents, families and friends too.”

He said it is fitting that the Cotes would be honored during this weekend-long celebration, saying, “As evidenced by Brian and Maureen, the parents of our students are as much a part of our Spartan family as our students and alumni. The Cotes have been participating in the Golf Classic since its inception, so it will be strange to see them on the other end of things,” he added.

“When I first told Brian and Maureen that they had been chosen as our honorees this year, their first question to me was, ‘Can we still volunteer for the Immaculata Golf Classic?’” recalled Rau. “That question alone is indicative of the type of people they are and is exactly the reason they will be great Mackie Award recipients.”

Immaculata High School, a co-ed college preparatory high school, and Immaculate Conception School, serving students in pre-K through 8th grade, both parochial schools in Somerville, are still enrolling for the fall. For more information, visit: immaculatahighschool.org or immaculateconception.org.