Distinguished Alumna

Persevere faithfully and joyfully in the work you have begun.
St. Angela Merici

Our 2024 Distinguished Alumnae of the Year

Gayle Parmelee '48

Miss Gayle Parmelee began her dance training at Hazel Nuss School of Dance, at the age of 7. Upon graduating from the Hazel Nuss School, she realized she wanted to be more than a dance teacher. She began studying with Lelia Haller and started taking classes with the New Orleans Opera Ballet. She soon earned her first union contract and performed in New Orleans for about 10 years with the New Orleans Opera Ballet.

Miss Parmelee later traveled to New York: where she studied at the schools of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo and American Ballet Theatre. The New Orleans native also performed with several concert dance troupes and in Broadway productions of Oklahoma! and Silk Stockings. She was also a June Taylor dancer, appearing on the Jackie Gleason Show, and a member of the Radio City Music Hall Corps de Ballet. From there she began visiting every dance school possible to learn what ballet methods were being taught while on tour performing. When visiting Chicago, she found a ballet teaching course, that she consumed with a voracious appetite for all things ballet. In the 1960's the Gayle Parmelee School of Classical Ballet opened in New Orleans, just a short walking distance from her beloved Alma Mater Ursuline Academy. There she encouraged and taught legions of soon-to-be dancers, teachers, ballet faculty, administrators, and company directors.

When Miss Parmelee closed her School of Classical Ballet in New Orleans, she went on to teach and choreograph for The Jackson Ballet and The Savannah Ballet Companies before returning home to New Orleans. She joined Loyola University in 1978 where she was the director and choreographer for the Loyola Ballet. During that time, she traveled to Russia several times in the 1980s to study Russian teaching methods. During her Loyola tenure, she built a ballet curriculum based on the Russian Vaganova Syllabus and directed 42 consecutive productions for the university ballet program until she retired in 1999. As Associate Professor Emerita, she ended her career in academia and continued to work with the Loyola Preparatory Ballet School for several more years.

She has received several awards including the Tribute to the Classical Arts Lifetime Achievement Award in 1998 and the Mayor’s Arts Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2005. She also appeared in the award-winning 2005 documentary “Ballets Russes”, and was a collaborator of both the New Orleans International Ballet Conference and the 2000 Conference on the History of the Ballet Russe. Miss Parmelee has always shown true courage, encouraging children of all races and creeds to participate and learn at an elevated level of dance, especially by supporting those children during the civil rights era of the 1960s. She continues to encourage, mentor, and support all those she encounters and remains deeply involved in her community; various artistic, educational, and religious institutions, and is a parishioner of Mater Dolorosa Catholic Church. Miss Parmelee also continues to entertain visits and enjoys calls from her ballet progeny.

Patricia "Paddy" Pittman Barattini '74

After graduating from Ursuline Academy in 1974, Mrs. Barattini attended the University of Louisiana Lafayette where she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree summa cum laude in 1978 and then went on to Loyola University School of Law where she earned a Juris Doctor degree cum laude in 1981. She has practiced with the law firm of Porteous, Hainkel & Johnson LLP for the last 25 years in the Covington office where she defends insurance companies and their insured in automobile, homeowners, bad faith, and coverage disputes with emphasis on motion practice and brief writing. Prior to that, she was the staff attorney for the late Honorable George C. Connolly Jr. and the late Honorable Lorain F. Wingerter ad hoc in the Civil District Court for Orleans Parish and was the staff attorney for the Honorable John W. Greene and the late Honorable Peter J. Garcia in the 22nd Judicial District Court for St. Tammany and Washington Parishes. She also served as a child support and non-support hearing officer for the 22nd Judicial District Court. 

Mrs. Barattini has been married to her husband Ronnie for 45 years. They have four grown children: Bret, Charlie (Tabitha), Andrew (Bekka), and Lauren, and they have four grandsons – Rohm, twins Elias and James, and Alastair Barattini. Their children completed all of their elementary and secondary education in Catholic schools, first at St. Peter School in Covington and then at St. Paul School and at St. Scholastica Academy. 

Mrs. Barattini never missed a St. Peter Parents’ Club meeting during the 18 years that her children were students. She was elected to the St. Peter School Advisory Board and served for 5 years, including as secretary. During that time, she was appointed to the Principal Search Committee. While on the board of the St. Peter Parents’ Club, Mrs. Barattini drafted and published the St. Peter School student directory and formed the New Family Outreach committee to welcome parents of new students by providing one-on-one family mentors. She volunteered in the library to read to lower elementary classes and was a room mother for many of her children’s classes.

Over the 10 years that her sons attended St. Paul, Mrs. Barattini volunteered to support the activities and fundraising efforts for the wrestling, soccer, and football teams. As a board member of the St. Paul Mothers’ Club, she chaired the Eighth Grade Graduation reception. Mrs. Barattini twice co-chaired the St. Scholastica Mother/Daughter Brunch while serving on the St. Scholastica Mothers’ Club Board. 

In 2022, Mrs. Barattini was awarded the Order of St. Louis IX Medallion by the Archdiocese of New Orleans in recognition of her significant contributions of time and talent and her devotion to St. Peter Parish. She is currently coordinating the lector ministry, which includes training of all new lectors, and is also a member of the Liturgy committee. Mrs. Barattini has been a lector at 8 a.m. Sunday Mass for over 25 years. She attends 6:30 a.m. daily Mass and lectors. Mrs. Barattini was part of the Stewardship committee for 3 years. She was elected to the Pastoral Council, where she served 4 years including as Council chair. Mrs. Barattini represented St. Peter Parish on the inaugural Northshore Catholic Charities Advisory Board. She was blessed to co-chair the Mass of Thanksgiving and reception celebrating the retirement of her Pastor and dear friend, the late Father Otis W. Young, Jr. 

In service to her Northshore community, Mrs. Barattini and her family delivered meal boxes on Christmas morning to the homebound and needy as part of the Feed the Needy program of the Covington Rotary Club for 14 years, from 2006 until the home delivery program was discontinued due to the Covid-19 pandemic. For the last 9 years, she has coordinated members of her law firm to volunteer for the Women Build project of the West St. Tammany Habitat for Humanity.

Over the years, Mrs. Barattini has been pleased to co-coordinate numerous class reunions for her beloved Sweetheart Skips of 1974 and to help organize several Northshore Chapter gatherings of the Ursuline Academy Alumnae Association.

About the Award

Each year, the Ursuline Alumnae Association honors one outstanding member at the Homecoming celebration in November. The Distinguished Alumna, chosen by a special committee of the Association, is an outstanding graduate who best exemplifies the core values and ideals of an Ursuline Education in all aspects of her life.

• Development of a Nurturing Community Spirit

• Commitment to Faith and Peacemaking

• Serviam as a Lived Reality

• Courtesy, Loyalty and Courage

The Distinguished Alumna Award is presented annually at Homecoming.

Nominations

Nomination forms may be downloaded here. To submit your nomination form, please email to: alumnae@uanola.org.

OR

Mail to:
Distinguished Alumna Award Committee
Ursuline Academy Alumnae Office
2635 State Street
New Orleans, LA 70118

The 2024 nomination forms were due by July 31, 2024. Thank you to all who submitted a nomination. To check on the status of a previous nomination, please email Alumnae Director Maria Weidenbacher at alumnae@uanola.org.