WALLACE — Nora Pierre had a front row seat to a special celebration, and it was something she really enjoyed.

The Wallace native and former supervising principal in the St. John the Baptist Parish School System was one of many supporters who gathered Tuesday night at Whitney Plantation to honor West St. John High School’s students, faculty and staff.

West St. John High gained national attention last month when Newsweek ranked the school fifth in the nation on its “Beating the Odds 2015” list, which ranks schools’ success at preparing students for college based on performance while also controlling for student poverty rates.

Newsweek ranked West St. John High School fifth out of 500 schools.

“The students and faculty, their biggest accomplishment is calling attention to the fact students from lower-income high schools can do as well as or better than any of the top schools in the nation,” Pierre said.

According to Pierre, Whitney Plantation owner John Cummings made the event possible — “they underwrote everything (Tuesday) night.”

Following such an amazing academic accomplishment by West St. John High School students and staff members, Cummings said it was vitally important to get the faculty and “everyone, including the groundskeepers, janitors and cooks” together to “simply tell them, as a community, we appreciated them, we realize there are problems but we are 100 percent behind them.”

State Rep. Randal Gaines, who was in attendance Tuesday night, said West St. John community members routinely demonstrate a high level of commitment to their community, the school system and the children.

“They have always demonstrated a high level of commitment to the advancement of their community,” Gaines said.

To create its list, Newsweek took into account each school’s performance on state standardized tests, enrollment data, graduation rates, advanced placement, college admission test scores and counselor-to-student ratios.

According to Newsweek, West St. John’s composite SAT/ACT score is 27.6 and the school’s graduation rate and college bound score are each 100 percent.

According to Norman Marmillion, who served as Tuesday night’s emcee, West St. John’s success is years, if not decades, in the making.

“A lot of effort over many years made this happen,” said Marmillion, a member of the West St. John Stakeholders. “I think the teachers felt real good about (Tuesday’s celebration). It needed to be done. It took years to get to this point.”

Editor’s note: Check out Saturday’s L’OBSERVATEUR for expanded coverage.