(gentle music) - [Jim] They might have been the last in a long line of Rosati Kain High School graduates, but they weren't, there were too many who said, this place cannot be closed - Because of my love for Rosati, I said, if anybody can do this, Rosati Kain girls can do this.

And they did.

- TV anchor Michelle Li talks about her Very Asian Foundation, and the voicemail that set it all in motion.

- If people knew the history in their own backyard as shared history, it would change the whole narrative of how we perceive each other.

- [Jim] And the man who captures movement in statues, sculptor, Harry Weber gets a star on the Walk of Fame.

- People will see the statues, I'm not really sure if they'll remember Harry Weber.

- It's all next on "Living St.

Louis."

(gentle music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) I'm Jim Kirchherr.

You know, there are times in a lot of people's lives when they feel powerless, events moving forward beyond their control.

Our first story's not about that.

Anne-Marie Berger brings us a story about dedication, cooperation, determination, And yes, I think it would be appropriate to say in this case, girl power.

(upbeat music) (gentle music) - [Anne-Marie] In May, Rosati Kain Highs School celebrated its 111th graduating class at the new cathedral.

(gentle music) This year was particularly special because the class of 2023 was almost their last.

- The Archdiocese of St. Louis announces its decision to close two of its cherished institutions.

- St. Mary's and Rosati Kain High Schools in St. Louis will close at the end of the school year.

- [Anne-Marie] The announcement from the archdiocese came as a shock to the students, faculty, staff, and alumni of Rosati Kain.

- Lots of tears, lots of heartbreak.

- [Anne-Marie] Maggie Sullivan is the incoming president of Rosati Kain.

- And I think for our young people who have been through a pandemic, who have been through so much in the past few years, this was truly a kick in the stomach.

(gentle music) - [Anne-Marie] Opening in 1911 under the School Sisters of Notre Dame and the Sisters of St. Joseph, Rosati Kain was the first all girls school within the city of St. Louis.

And in 1947, was the first high school in the St. Louis area to integrate.

- Both orders were forward thinking and proponents of social justice.

And so it was very important to them that they serve the dear neighbor without distinction and that meant all of the neighbors.

And in the city of St. Louis, the demographic is very diverse, and therefore their mission was to serve the brightest, the most academically gifted of the young women, and that meant students of color as well.

- [Anne-Marie] For more than a century Rosati Kain has educated thousands of top scholars, diverse women who have gone on to become judges, business leaders, scientists and educators themselves.

And as it turns out, it's these very women who weren't going to let Rosati close.

(gentle music) ♪ We stand as women of Rosati Kain ♪ - Let's walk back a moment, we don't like to talk about the day, but let's walk it back, to September 28th when we heard the news that Rosati Kain High School was going to close at the end of the current school year.

Like many of you, I felt a sense of loss, but also a defeat for this community, as young women would forfeit this exceptional educational choice, and I wasn't alone.

The rapid response from our community inspired a collaboration that in true RK fashion, captured the energy and drive of alumni and parents with a goal that we could not and we would not let this happen.

- When we came to this meeting in October and I saw the enthusiasm and I sat here and because of my love for Rosati, I said, if anybody can do this, Rosati Kain girls can do this, and they did.

- [Anne-Marie] Rosati Kain girls mobilized.

By Christmas, a lease with the archdiocese had been negotiated.

They secured a Catholic sponsor with the Sisters of St. Joseph.

Money was raised to keep Rosati Kain open, and a financial sustainability plan was implemented.

- There is something about the mission of Rosati Kain and our place in the city of St. Louis and the population that we serve and the power of our alumni that people said, there's no way we're closing this school and we are staying and we're gonna make sure that Rosati Kain is better than ever.

- [Anne-Marie] As of July 1st, the only all girls high school in the city of St. Louis will go by a new name, Rosati Kain Academy.

- We believe in the values and I spoke out very loudly and strongly that this institution continues, because of what it has been, it is and stands for in the central city, right across from the cathedral.

Outstanding education, the multicultural diversity, and that's the kind of thing we need in our country and in our world.

- [Anne-Marie] Rosati Kain Academy is open, but the grassroots effort to achieve financial sustainability will endure.

75% of students receive financial aid.

And last year due to COVID and fear of closure, enrollment dropped from 248 to 188 students.

(students singing) But the RK Community's loyalty fuels their dedication to ensure the young women in the city of St. Louis have the same opportunity they did.

Once a Rosati always a Rosati girl.

What does that mean?

- Just that, we'll never let go.

We love this place like no other.

- It set the course of my life and gave me the skills and the tools to go out into the world and give what I received.

- [Anne-Marie] This year's graduating class will see students off the Harvard, Brown, University of Chicago, Trinity College in Dublin, among many other universities, guaranteeing the RK Forever Movement will continue.

(girls cheering) (upbeat music) - Last month was Asian-American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month.

And as Brooke Butler tells us, at least one local St. Louisan was very busy, in addition to her day job, actually her very early morning job at Channel 5.

(upbeat music) - [Brooke] Missouri native Michelle Li, joined "5 On Your Side" in 2021 with over two decades of broadcast experience, earning multiple awards for her work in journalism.

She's accomplished in her advocacy work for adoptees and children in foster care and mentoring young journalists.

But in January of 2022, Michelle became a household name for a different reason.

- [Caller] Hi, this evening you Asian anchor mentioned something about being Asian and Asian people eat dumplings on New Year's Day.

And I don't think it was appropriate that she said that, and she was being very asian and... - [Brooke] Very Asian, the term was used by a viewer who left a voicemail as you see Michelle reacting to in this video, complaining about a comment Michelle made about the the Korean tradition of eating dumplings for New Year's.

In what was an offensive and hurtful comment has since created a worldwide movement.

- Tonight, something that doesn't happen too often in KSDK, a social post about one of our newscast segments has gone viral.

- Michelle Li's story inspired the #veryasianmovement.

- Very Asian.

- Very Asian.

- [News Anchor] The #VeryAsian.

- [News Anchor] Very Asian.

- It's the number one trend, the number one search on Yahoo.

- Wow.

- I admire you so much by the way you handled that, that was incredible, I heard about it, I wanted to meet you.

- [Brooke] Turning the viral moment into a longer lasting impact, Michelle Li founded the Very Asian Foundation, through efforts like the May Book Project, which provides youth with Asian-American literature, and the Very Asian Creators Grant Program, providing funds to young Asian-American artists.

The foundation aims to shine a light on Asian experiences through advocacy and celebration.

Joining us now is Michelle Li, herself, KSDK's "Today in St. Louis," co-host, and founder of the Very Asian Foundation.

Welcome, Michelle.

- Thank you for having me.

- So, it's been a while since that video went viral.

Are you kind of over it?

- Oh my gosh, sometimes I'm like, am I gonna be the Very Asian lady forever?

What does that mean for people?

What does that mean for my life?

But you know what, it's only been a year and a half.

Sometimes it feels like five years.

So it's been really incredible to think- - You've done a lot.

- Just a few months, yeah.

- Yeah, yeah.

And you know, I think we hear about the harmful effects of social media, and I think we've all seen a viral video showcasing some harmful attitudes, behaviors.

But you know, on the flip side, you've been able to create this whole online community, support, how do you balance the positive and the negatives?

- Oh my gosh.

Well, I think anyone who works in television or in kind of a media space, you're already very aware of the good and the bad.

I'm still like counting my blessings that I haven't been canceled yet or that people haven't gotten super tired of me.

Well, maybe they have, you know?

- No, no.

- But I just keep trying to be authentic and honest and lay it all out in a way that I can and also keep my job as a journalist and all those things, you know?

- Right, yeah, and you know, the Midwest, you don't really think about large Asian community population.

I'm sure there's a lot more out there than the average person is aware of, but- - Oh yeah.

- You know, how has that been, living working in the Midwest?

- Well, I think, you know, because I'm from the Midwest, I was always proud to be from the Midwest.

And it was hard in some ways growing up, just in some ways, because there would be times when people thought I didn't belong here.

And the thing that I think is really important, even when you mentioned St. Louis having this maybe, potentially, small Asian-American population I think about the Asians who came here, the Chinese immigrants who came here before the Civil War, people who, we had a Chinatown in St. Louis for 100 years.

- That's right.

- And I always tell people, if people knew the history in their own backyard as shared history, it would change the whole narrative of how we perceive each other.

If you could say, well, my people have been here since the beginning of the, or the end of 1800s, people would be, oh my gosh, you know?

So I definitely feel like there's just so much more that we can talk about in a way that is shared and community building.

- Yeah, and when you say Very Asian, you know, Asia's is a pretty big continent, I dunno if you know that, there's a lot of cultures and subcultures and subcultures of the subcultures, and I think one of the things with immigration is losing that unique culture and heritage.

What has the response been from the Asian community?

- I think it's been really great in the sense that I am an adoptee, my parents do not look like me, my husband does not look like, I'm the only Asian person in my family, right?

And so, in a lot of ways I kind of go against the narratives that have been shared across the diaspora.

So being an adoptee, being a mid-westerner, doesn't really rise to the top of the Asian-American experience, even though technically I'm an immigrant, all these different things.

But I think it's so important to just have those conversations because people all around the country have experiences like that.

And I always say, instead of kind of shunning the Midwest for not being what you think it is, actually, people in the Midwest have been building community for a long time.

You don't get to live in a silo when you come to the Midwest.

You have to get along with everybody, right?

Whereas when I was living in other places, like say the West Coast, you could live in a silo, you really could.

But here in St. Louis, here in Missouri, you have to meet other people, you have to be out of your comfort zone.

And I think that's what's beautiful.

I think we have so much going for us.

And a lot of times that just gets kind of underrepresented across the media, across the board.

- And so as we mentioned, the month of May was Asian-American Pacific Islander Heritage Month.

Tell us about what the Very Asian Foundation is doing.

- I was gonna say, well, it's our heritage month, every month.

- Right, exactly, yes.

- Yeah, right.

- It's always relevant.

- Oh my goodness.

Well, we were so honored to be invited to some really cool spaces.

In May, we went to the White House for a White House summit, and we were a part of The Asian-American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Summit, which was pretty cool.

We also were honored by the FBI for raising, I should say, it was more like responding to anti-Asian hate and discrimination.

So it's been incredible to be invited to some of those spaces.

I don't think that that's gonna be long lasting.

I mean, maybe, if the White House wants to invite us back next year but it's just the idea of I think that people are ready to have great conversations, to listen more, to build community, and to do things beyond what has already been done.

I always say, sometimes it feels like the coasts kind of drown at what's going on across the country.

And no offense to the coast, I love both coasts, but there's a whole 48 other states that have representation.

And what is the representation like in St. Louis?

It's different than Casper, Wyoming, or San Francisco or New York, or Des Moines, Iowa.

I mean, we all represent, we all are in all corners of the country.

And so I think that that's why Very Asian resonated with people because it's like, hey, wait, I'm here too.

And it is a little ironic that a person with my face, but with my background, represents this conversation because I don't think it's happened before.

- That's right, I mean, yeah, and like you mentioned, it's not just, it shouldn't be just peg holed to one month, It should be an ongoing conversation.

- Yeah, 365 days a year for some of us.

- Exactly, exactly.

And I really like like the May Book Project, and sharing literature with kids to see, like, I think you probably would've appreciated that as a kid, seeing yourself represented.

- Absolutely, when I was a kid, we had Connie Chung, Kristi Yamaguchi, and then I'm sure someone else that I'm blanking out on.

You know, really I love this because as a journalist, these students from St. Louis said, hey, we tried to get some books into our schools last year and we were unsuccessful, can you help us?

And so I said, well, it seems like that's the easiest thing that we can do.

And then I realized, wait, I'm in way over my head.

So we use scholars and educators and librarians and all these people came together to create this entire project, which is an academic rubric, a toolkit, and a book list.

And so we've had so much support, especially across Missouri.

if a book doesn't work for a school district, hey there are 249 other books to choose from, you know?

So we've had a lot of great support and I really appreciate that.

It's the idea of mirrors and windows.

People say that all the time in education and in literature.

You wanna be able to see yourself, but you also wanna learn about the lives of others.

And so it is critical for young readers to be able to have that opportunity.

And so it's been it's been really neat to see that come to fruition.

- You've got a lot going on, you get up so early in the morning, as a parent of a young kid myself, I get up and I'm like struggling to get outta bed, and then I turn on the TV and I'm like, oh, Michelle's been awake for hours already.

- You can text me on air, I'll say, hey, how's it going, Brooke?

- Yeah, maybe that'll get me going a little bit more.

Thank you so much for joining us, Michelle.

And finally, the St. Louis Walk of Fame has been adding new stars, TV executive and host Andy Cohen, boxers, Michael and Leon Spinks, and last week, Jim Kirchherr attended the ceremony for a man who's not usually seen or heard much, but believe me, he's out there.

- Ladies and gentlemen, it is my honor to induct Harry Weber in the St. Louis Hallf of Fame.

- [Jim] Delmar Loop businessman, Joe Edwards introduced the newest St. Louis Walk of Fame honoree, St. Louis sculptor, Harry Weber.

Among those he thanked at the ceremony were the 26 other notable St. Louisans on the Walk of Fame that he has made statues of.

- It's a little ironic that I am being honored for honoring people, but I'll take it, thank you very much.

I often say that I live in the reflected glory of my subject matter - [Jim] But Harry Weber himself has quite a story, which we were able to tell a few years ago as he was completing another statue of a famous St. Louisan.

- Drawing is my entertainment, sculpture is my business.

- [Jim] You probably know sculptor Harry Weber's work, even if you maybe don't know his name.

He's the one who did all of the Hall of Famer statues outside Bush Stadium.

In fact, his sports sculptures can be found all over the country.

But he also did the Dred and Harriet Scott statue at the old courthouse, the bull and bear fighting it out outside Stifel Financial Downtown, Chuck Berry in the loop, he did that.

And now he's completed a seven foot tall statue of David R. Francis, 19th century Mayor of St. Louis, governor of Missouri, cabinet member, head of the 1904 World's Fair, Ambassador to Russia.

His name is still out there, Francis Field at Wash U, Francis Quadrangle at Mizzou, and Francis Park in South St. Louis.

And that's where this statue will be going because, well, because some folks from that neighborhood wanted David Francis to be more than a name, and so they turned to Harry Weber.

- And the real trick is that when somebody asks you to do a statue of, here's a picture of so-and-so, the picture is fine, but you gotta make the thing work 360 degrees and up and down.

And so a lot of it is imagination.

So we do a lot of preliminary sketches to make sure that the pose we have works all the way around, that kind of thing.

- [Jim] He wants somebody coming back from that time who knew him to say- - Oh yeah.

- You got it.

Yeah, and you have to imagine, I think, in your head, because I think, I'm not a big fan of sort of monumental statues, I like personality to come through.

So you have to imagine in your own head what was this guy like?

You know, was he in fact the archetypical mover and shaker of the time?

Which in fact, he probably was.

- [Jim] I look at the stuff, some of the stuff that people are most familiar with that you've done in St. Louis are the sports figures, and that's probably true around the rest of the country as well.

What amazes me about your work is your ability to capture motion and movement in such a realistic way.

- And one thing Rodin never had was stainless steel supports.

So even his Walking Man had to have two points of contact, because bronze was not sturdy enough to hold itself up, but a stainless steel skeleton allows us to make him fly.

- [Jim] Look at what he was able to do for the Boston Bruins, depicting the famous moment after Bobby Orr scored the goal that beat the Blues in the 1970s Stanley Cup.

- Bobby Orr, about 1000 pounds of bronze suspended on his right toe, which is kind of fun.

- [Jim] And (unclear) is, again, he's in mid-air there's a little cloud of dust there that's holding him up, but still.

- Yeah, I love little clouds of dust.

But so there's a technological thing about making him move but then there's also a process, which I think a lot of people overwork clay to the point that it, in my mind, it just shuts down, it stops being real, it turns into something that's too exact, too perfect.

And I like to think that the sculptures that I do have the same spontaneity as a sketch that took me six minutes, the sculpture took me six months, but they've gotta be alive.

And I love movement, I love what the human body can do.

I'm not that much of a sports fan, as much as I'm a fan of guys that do sports because they're moving most of the time.

- [Jim] When it comes to movement.

The David Francis statue is a little more subtle.

There's the posture, a coattail that flaps in the wind.

And Harry Weber spent a lot of time on the face, because he is not just capturing a moment, but an emotion.

So much of what makes this work is the expression on their face.

- Oh, no kidding.

I mean, I like saying this is the reason that we don't go around sniffing each other's butts like dogs do, is this is such an exquisite communicator of what's on our mind, what we're doing at the time.

So that's what you want to get on the statue.

And somebody, when we did Bob Gibson said, you know, I'm not sure Bob's gonna like it so much that you've got him grimacing like that.

And we asked Bob about it and he said, you don't look real happy when you're delivering 100 mile an hour fastball towards somebody you don't like.

- [Jim] Another prominent Weber sculpture is the one on the St. Louis Riverfront depicting Lewis and Clark's return from their expedition.

It's a moment of triumph, but Weber saw more than that.

- [Harry] You know, Meriwether Lewis, I wanted to get him on the fact that he, even in the time that he was of his biggest triumph, was part of his biggest sadness.

You know, the best part of his life was over.

- [Jim] Weber creates his statues out of clay in one studio, they are cast in bronze, in pieces out of town, and assembled in a workspace in Soulard.

Weber's quick to point out that this is not a one man show.

Artisans Vlad Zhitomirsky and Misha Medveyev, are essential to creating the finished product.

- Right, and there's a lot of collaboration and there's a lot of mutual trust.

When we did the thing on the Riverfront, the Lewis and Clark, which was 22 feet high by the time we installed it, and it was cast in 198 pieces.

And if you can imagine Vlad and Misha putting together a three dimensional jigsaw puzzle, where each piece weighs 50 to 100 pounds, I don't think I could lift 50 or 100 pounds.

So that's up to them, not me.

So it's the process that you remember just as much as the end result.

- [Jim] It's the collaborative, I think people don't necessarily understand the collaboration, they're thinking you're there with some clay and all by yourself and the finished product is done when you're done.

- [Harry] And there's a lot of collaboration and there's a lot of mutual trust.

- [Jim] You're doing something that a lot of us feel like we're not, which is leaving something behind, you talk about immortalizing them, in a way, you're immortalizing yourself.

I mean, these things will be around for a long time.

- The things will be around for a long time, but like Francis Park is around for a long time, and Francis Field is around for a long time, but they don't really remember who Francis was.

I think people will see the statues.

I'm not really sure if they'll remember Harry Weber, maybe my daughter will, I guess.

I think sculptors are fairly anonymous most of the time, and we know of each other, and I think that's pretty much it.

(gentle music) - The people I've taught with, rode with, served with, worked with, talked with, made my life worth living.

And they're the stars here.

And a little English major me, and if you've heard this before, don't stop me, from Yeats, "Think where Man's glory begins and ends, and say, my glory was I had such friends."

Thank you.

(crowd applauding) (upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) - And that's "Living St.

Louis."

Keep sending us your thoughts and your comments at ninepbs.org/lsl.

I'm Jim Kirchherr, thanks for joining us, and we'll see you next time.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) - [Announcer] "Living St. Louis" is funded in part by the Betsy and Thomas Patterson Foundation, and the members of Nine PBS.