Talk:St. Mary's Ryken High School

Corrections about St. Mary’s Ryken and Southern Maryland
Two corrections—

1) The article incorrectly states that “Southern Maryland” is only Charles, St. Mary’s and Calvert Counties. But Southern Maryland also includes Southern Prince George’s County and Southern Ann Arundel County.

2) The article states that St. Mary’s Ryken is the only Washington Diocese Catholic High School in Southern Maryland. Not true. Bishop McNamara in Southern Prince George’s County is the other one.

Chesapeake77 (talk) 07:22, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

Southern PG and Anne Arundel are only sometimes considered part of Southern Maryland, as the SoMD wikipedia page makes clear (and as anyone from that part of MD would tell you). Moreover, Forestville, where McNamara is located, is within the Capital Beltway; by McNamara's website's admission, they consider themselves a part of the Washington metropolitan area - and with good reason, since Forestville is far more similar to DC than to (mostly rural) Southern Maryland. Southern Maryland is not just a geographic designation - it's not even the furthest south you can go in MD. TheHalterman (talk) 01:47, 11 February 2022 (UTC)


 * I am from Southern P.G. County and either you are very out of touch or you are lying just to troll articles and play “self-appointed administrator”.


 * Not “some”, most residents know for a fact that Southern Prince George’s County as well as Southern Ann Arundel County ARE a part of Southern Maryland.


 * '''For example the Southern Maryland Hospital Center is in Clinton which is in Southern Prince George’s County. Please also note that that the Hospital website states it’s location as being “in the heart of Southern Maryland”. Clinton is also mostly not a rural area.’’’


 * In addition, ‘’’the Southern Maryland article MAP shows the Forestville area included in the “pink map area” of “sometimes Southern Maryland, sometimes not”.’’’ And the map includes large “inside the Beltway” areas.


 * Upper Marlboro and numerous other areas listed in that article are BOTH considered “Metro Washington AND Southern Maryland”.’’’


 * There is also nothing in the “definition of Southern Maryland” that requires it to NOT be urban. For example, ‘’’Waldorf, Maryland now is it’s own urban area with 83,000 people, just within it’s boundaries, and considering nearby areas it’s more like 160,000 people. So “urban” and Southern Maryland are not mutually exclusive.’’’


 * Furthermore Bishop McNamara High School is 9 miles by road and a look at the map shows it is 5.5 miles by air (straight line) from the Southern Maryland Hospital Center.


 * Overall your arguments are inconsistent, arbitrary and seem to indicate troll-editing.


 * Chesapeake77 (talk) 03:15, 11 February 2022 (UTC)


 * I’m also from that part of the state, and I’m not a troll editor. For a business in Clinton to say they are in the *heart* of Southern Maryland is just factually wrong. Even if they are part of the region, objectively they are on the outskirts. Furthermore, PG and Anne Arundel are clearly not as integrated with the other three counties - one example I’ll give is the community college system. Calvert, Charles, and St. Mary’s all have campuses of the College of Southern Maryland, while PG and Anne Arundel have their own systems.


 * Also, the MD Tourism website only includes Calvert, Charles, and St Mary’s locations in its guide to “Southern MD”: https://www.visitmaryland.org/list/things-see-and-do-southern-maryland


 * These other tourism websites (which were the first to pop up when I typed “Southern Maryland” into google) also only use the southern three counties.
 * https://destinationsouthernmaryland.com
 * https://www.maryland.com/regions/southern-maryland/


 * And while, of course, there are “urban” areas in SoMD, the culture is still largely rural and distinct from that of DC and its immediate suburbs.


 * Look, obviously geographic terms aren’t always exact and there can be a lot of points on either side of these sorts of debates. But the fact of the matter is that St Mary’s, Charles, and Calvert are always, unambiguously denoted as Southern Maryland, and that’s simply not the case for southern PG and Anne Arundel. Even saying “the southern portions of PG” is geographically ill-defined. Where do we draw the line?


 * But let’s return to the article at hand. Even if Southern PG should 100% be considered part of Southern Maryland all the time, which I don’t think is the case, it’s not incorrect for Ryken to bill itself as the only Catholic high school in SoMD if McNamara doesn’t view itself as serving the SoMD population. I don’t think its unreasonable for Ryken to be designated the “only catholic high school in SoMD” because it’s the only one that unambiguously is located in the defined geographic area, and McNamara isn’t even claiming to be there. TheHalterman (talk) 14:35, 11 February 2022 (UTC)