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MIEGE MATTERSA NEWSLETTER FOR ALUMNI, PARENTS OF ALUMNI AND FRIENDS SUMMER 2008 INSIDE The Miege miracle Page 3 Sister Martina receives national award Page 4 KU seniors play at Miege Page 4 35th annual auction wrapup Page 6 Alumni and past parents pitch in on mission trips 50 YEARS Page 7 OF BISHOP MIEGE 1 9 5 8 - 2 0 0 8 Stag achievements Celebratingn Sept. 7, 1958, the students, Page 8-11 faculty and staff of St. Agnes High School ceremoniously Danny Morris O 3-on-3 marched from St. Agnes to the new basketball Bishop Miege High School and ushered tournament in both a new building and a new era of Page 12 1950s Catholic education in Kansas City. Fifty years later, we will recreate that 1980s Donkey Ball opening parade as we look back on the returns to past and ahead to the future of Miege. Miege Page 12 This reunion is more than a mea- sure of years gone by. It’s an opportunity Alumnotes for old friends to tap a well of shared Page 13-15 1960s memories and to remember what made 1990s us friends in the first place. If you haven’t Calendar Page 16 been back in a while, this is an ideal time to revisit your old stomping grounds. The place has changed quite a bit, but the spirit of Miege has remained the same for the last half century. 1970s 2000s SEE SPECIAL INSERT FOR MORE! 8 FROM THE PRESIDENT Dear Friends of Miege, ost would agree the biggest worry for parents is the safety and health of their children. This parental Mmission manifests itself in the many ways we focus our actions and thoughts on them. It starts at infancy and lasts through Miege Matters alumni magazine is published adulthood. We never stop caring for their welfare. two times a year by Bishop Miege High School, In the end, though, we realize there is only so much a parent 5041 Reinhardt Dr., Shawnee Mission, KS 66205. can control, and the rest is in God’s hand – and that’s where prayer comes in. So, on a daily basis, parents ask Him to watch over their POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Bishop Miege High School, 5041 Reinhardt Dr., children and protect them from harm. God answers our prayers Shawnee Mission, KS 66205. God answers more than we will ever realize. But, there are exceptions – those LETTERS in response to articles in Miege our prayers times when it is obvious His hand is at work. Matters are welcomed. Please limit your letter I call it the “Miege Miracle.” The accompanying article (on to 200 words and include your name, year more than page 3) recounts the marvelous story of how a classroom lesson of graduation, address and daytime phone number. Address correspondence to Colleen we will ever saved a Miege student from a certain medical crisis. The thing Cooke, Editor, Miege Matters magazine, 5041 that makes this story so exceptional is the outstanding care and Reinhardt Dr., Shawnee Mission, KS 66205; realize. But, diligence displayed by two of our staff members and his parents e-mail: [email protected]. Letters may be edited for style, clarity and length. there are and the unexplained events that came into play in order for Patrick Moore’s condition to be identifi ed and later treated. exceptions Another amazing part of these events is the timing. If this lesson – those times had occurred any earlier in the year, as it sometimes did, it might have been too soon to detect the condition, and any later might when it is have been too late. obvious His As it happened, Mr. Alan Thomas was in the nurse’s offi ce the day before to get some help on measuring blood pressure as part hand is at of an upcoming lesson. During his visit, Mrs. Maura Peterson work. showed him a pulse oximeter and asked if he wanted to use it in the lesson also. He decided to take one with the idea he might use it as an additional way to measure pulse rate. The next day was his annual lesson of having his students measure their pulses by using their fi ngers on a pulse point. Again, because he had just obtained the device, Mr. Thomas decided to allow as many students as possible to use the pulse oximeter. As it worked out, Patrick was one of the last two students in the class to www.alumni. use the instrument. It would not have been unusual for the lesson to conclude before his turn. bishopmiege.com I am sure many of you have your own experiences that are so To join the Bishop Miege online exceptional that it reinforces your belief in the power of prayer alumni community for the fi rst and you just know that God’s hand had to be at work. time, enter your user name as In this situation, our story quite likely would have had a far your fi rst name, last name and different ending if it were not for the diligence of Patrick’s parents four-digit year of graduation with and the caring work of Mr. Thomas and Mrs. Peterson. I am no spaces between words: i.e., reminded of the phrase: “Work as if everything depends on you; susantremonti1979. Your password and pray as if everything depends on God.” is the numeric code at the top of this issue’s mailing label. God bless. Once you’ve logged in, you can Sincerely, personalize your username and password in your profi le information. If you have any trouble or questions, please email Colleen Cooke: ccooke@ bishopmiege. com. 2 MIEGE MATTERS ■ SUMMER 2008 bishopmiege.com NEWS & NOTES The Miege Miracle During a class project, a sophomore discovered a life-threatening heart condition t all ended like a made-for-TV movie. But it began simply, on April 2, Ilike any other day in the life of Miege sophomore Patrick Moore. He drove to school, went to classes, talked to friends – the usual. In his anatomy and physiology class that day, the lesson was on heart rates. Typically, science teacher Alan Thomas taught his students to measure their heart rate the usual way: pressing two fingers to the pulse point on the wrist. But on a whim that day, Thomas had borrowed the school nurses’s pulse oxim- eter to measure the students’ heart rates instead. When it was Patrick’s turn to take his pulse, he wished he’d paid closer atten- tion to Thomas’s instructions. “I was surprised,” Patrick said. “I thought maybe I’d done something wrong.” When Bishop Miege science teacher Alan Thomas (left) borrowed a pulse oximeter for His heart rate registered abnormally a class demonstration, sophomore Patrick Moore (middle) noticed something unusually high – 160 bpm (beats per minute). A wrong when it was his turn to measure his heart rate. A quick follow-up by school nurse Maura Peterson (right) led to a series of events that may have saved Patrick’s life. normal resting heart rate is usually between Photo by Elaina Generally, The Leaven 60 and 90 bpm. When Patrick informed his teacher, They had, and the next three weeks great,” she said. “They sent cards, came to Thomas was immediately alarmed. were a whirlwind of doctor’s appointments, visit Patrick in the hospital, and friends “I coach runners,” Thomas said, “so I’m as physicians tried to determine what was were always bringing food over to the used to someone having a higher heart wrong with Patrick’s heart. house. We couldn’t even keep up with the rate when they’ve been running and are A chest x-ray and an EKG both came sheer volume of e-mails and phone calls breathing heavily. But Patrick was just sit- back negative for indications of a heart from people offering their support.” ting there in class, and I knew his heart rate problem. Then, because Patrick had just Finally, a referral to a pediatric cardiac should not have been that high.” returned from a mission trip to Mexico, specialist produced the answers the Moores Thomas walked Moore down to the doctors considered the chance that he were looking for: Patrick was diagnosed school nurse Maura Peterson, who took his might have contracted a tropical disease. with ectopic atrial tachycardia. heart rate again and tried several ways to “It was an eight-day period for us that At some point, Patrick’s heart had see if it would go down at all. was almost like an episode of ‘House,’” formed an extra piece of tissue that had It didn’t. So Peterson notified his par- said Bob Moore, Patrick’s father. “We were recently become active. The extra tissue ents and sent the teen – still feeling fine taking Patrick’s temperature and his heart somehow caused his heart to enlarge. That – straight home. rate every four hours, trying to figure out if forced it to work twice as fast to pump “Patrick’s heart rate was extremely he had some form of rare infection.” as much blood volume as normal, which significant, but we didn’t know what was One of the few things going right accounted for his heart rate. causing it,” Peterson said. during those long days, said Patrick’s mother, Doctors said it would not have been long She was so concerned she called the Debbie (Kavanaugh) Moore ’73, was the before Patrick would have started showing Moores again to make sure they had fol- support the family received from the school.