WEST CATHOLIC WINTER 2015 ALUMNINEWS TOGETHER IN LEARNING. WESTAND FOREVER IN FAITH. School News Alumni News Advancement News Foundation News Vol. 29 No. 1, WC Edition WINTER 2015 Grand Rapids Catholic Secondary Schools David Faber, Superintendent/ ALUMNIConnecting the WEST CATHOLICNEWS Community Canonical Administrator Kevin Simon, Business Manager Pam Sisco, Accounts Receivable 3 PRINCIPAL’S LETTER Tory Smith, Accounts Payable/Human Resources Carol Glanville, Director of Educational Technology Marilyn Gillis, Database Assistant 4 FROM FR. SCOTT NOLAN West Catholic High School Cynthia Kneibel, Principal 5 PASSING ON VIRTUES: ALUMNI PROFILE Tony Fischer, Assistant Principal Christopher Abid, Director of Alumni Relations & Assistant Athletic Director 7 SHARING THE FRUIT OF HARD WORK Kristy Blackmore, Advancement Director Jill VanderEnde, Program Officer 8 SHINING BRIGHT: FALCON AWARDS NIGHT Dan Rohn, Athletic Director Todd Peters, Admissions Director Fr. Scott Nolan, Chaplain 9 SCHOOL NEWS Foundation for Catholic Secondary Education Michael Wolfston, Executive Director 11 SPORTS ROUND-UP West Catholic Alumni News is published twice yearly by Grand Rapids Catholic Secondary Schools to connect the community of alumni, 14 FOUNDATION NEWS friends and family of West Catholic High School. Send comments to: 15 IN MEMORIAM Editor Alumni News 1801 Bristol Ave NW 15 CLASS NOTES Grand Rapids MI 49504 [email protected] Mission West Catholic High School provides a Catholic culture for instruction and faith formation that challenges students to know and love God, seek Intercession to Saint John Paul II knowledge and truth, respect the dignity of each person and contribute to society through leadership and service. O Holy Trinity, we thank you for having given to the Church Keep in touch! Send us your new address and your new degree, new job, engagement, marriage and birth Pope John Paul II, announcements. Please email Chris Adid, Alumni and for having made him shine with your fatherly tenderness, Director, at [email protected]. the glory of the Cross of Christ and the splendor of the Spirit of love Online www.grwestcatholic.org He, trusting completely in your infinite mercy and in the maternal intercession of Mary, has shown himself facebook.com/grwestcatholic in the likeness of Jesus the Good Shepherd facebook.com/grwestcatholicalums and has pointed out to us holiness twitter.com/grwcatholic as the path to reach eternal communion with You. Grant us, through his intercession, according to your will, the grace that we implore, in the hope that he will soon be numbered among your saints. Amen. WEST CATHOLIC HIGH SCHOOL 1801 Bristol NW • Grand Rapids MI 49504 2 | WEST CATHOLIC ALUMNI NEWS FROM THE PRINCIPAL A new era Welcome to the new West Catholic! Beginning on January 1, 2015 we began a new era, a time of independent governance that will allow West Catholic’s unique personality to grow and flourish. Last spring the Most Reverend Bishop David Walkowiak announced the splitting of the Grand Rapids Catholic Secondary School Board into two independent boards, one serving Catholic Central the other West Catholic. This separation will help both schools meet the competitive challenges faced today in the educational marketplace. Separate we can laser-focus on the strengths as well as the challenges in each building and each community. The Catholic principle of subsidiarity dictates that matters should be addressed at the smallest, least centralized authority possible with the knowledge that those closest to the issues understand them and their potential solutions best. I am confident this governance structure will encourage growth and sustainability in both schools, bringing in more energy and vitality than ever before. The new Board is taking over the governance at what I believe to be the early stages of significant growth for West Catholic. Enrollment, up for the past two years, is positioned to grow significantly for the 2015-2016 school year. To date, the number of applications received for the 2015-2016 freshman class has increased by 27% compared to last year, with potential for even greater growth as the academic year progresses. Each class currently in the building has grown in number since entering freshman year. Private schools typically have attrition of students throughout the years yet we show growth at every class level! The new Board is fortunate to have the tremendous momentum gained from the past. We have a firm foundation on which to build. Thank you to everyone who has given their time, talent, treasure, prayers and support. Your dedication is not only reflected in enrollment growth, but many other facets of West Catholic life. Since 2007 we have received recognition as a Top 50 Catholic School, this year renamed a School of Excellence by the Cardinal Newman Society. We were acknowledged on the 2014 Washington Post’s list of the Most Challenging Schools in America. College scholarship dollars granted to the 2014 senior graduating class reached a record high of $7,238,782 which averages out to $62,945.93 per graduate. We are in the process of improving our physical campus. Come by if you have the opportunity to see the current and planned improvements. I would also like to thank the Grand Rapids Catholic Secondary Board members, past and present who valiantly steered the Grand Rapids Catholic Schools through both great and challenging times. Working together we kept our mission of a Christ-centered, academically rigorous education alive and well. I am confident collaboration will continue as both schools reach out to each other for advice and support. Please enjoy this copy of the Alumni News. Come visit we would love to see you! God Bless you today and always. Cynthia Kneibel Principal WINTER 2015 | 3 FROM THE CHAPLAIN Dear Friends in Christ, The school year is almost halfway over already! Which means that all of our students are busy getting ready for the final exams concluding the first semester, and the teachers are all gearing up for the second semester of courses. Winter sports are in full swing, and the Shakespeare play is getting ready for their performance. Plenty is happening at West Catholic (although really that is true all year)! The other thing happening is that we are in the middle of winter, or at least are about to be in the middle of winter. For some, that’s a great thing, outdoor winter sports can be an absolute blast. Personally, I would prefer that the sun come out a little more often, even if the cold forces us to be inside, I’m still a big fan of the sunlight. And you know what, I’ve discovered that at times life can be like that. We want the sunlight to come out a little more often than it does, we want the warmth and comfort that it brings. Even if we cannot clearly identify and articulate the restlessness of our hearts, there it is, staring at us like a cloudy January day in Michigan, not going anywhere anytime soon. Might I propose that precisely the ordinariness of this time we are about to enter, after Christmas and New Year’s celebrations are over, is a fantastic place to encounter God. You see, the Incarnation of Jesus, also called Christmas, is incredible and grace-filled, and yet amazingly ordinary. There is something incredible and unrepeatable about the birth of a child. And yet it happens every day and rarely makes the news. Jesus was born into our world as a seemingly ordinary little baby. The grace of God happens upon our hearts often in very ordinary ways. Will we, like Mary and the disciples before us, be paying enough attention to God’s ordinariness to say yes to His grace? I think that the ordinariness, and perhaps cloudiness, of winter gives us a chance to learn anew how to do just that. Yours in Christ, Fr. Scott Nolan Chaplain On Tuesday, November 11, 2014, West Catholic held a Mass in honor of all Veterans. 4 | WEST CATHOLIC ALUMNI NEWS ALUMNI PROFILE Passing on virtue Large families often draw a lot of attention to themselves whether intentionally or inadvertently. Anyone who watches reality television knows the public’s fascination with how these mega families function. One such family has its roots in West Michigan: Miles and Cecelia Schmidt and their nine children, eight of whom attended West Catholic. Miles, a 1968 West Catholic graduate, met his wife, Cecelia Stawski from Hamtramck, while attending Duns Scotus College in the Detroit area. “I was looking for a girl with traditional Catholic values, who placed family as her first priority. He also added, “She was Polish and even though I wasn’t, I grew up with so many of Polish descent on the Westside, that I felt right at home with her from the start. And,” he said, “she was very attractive!” Education is very important to the Schmidt’s. Both Miles and Cecelia attended Catholic grade schools and high schools and went on to receive multiple degrees. Cecelia attended Immaculata High School (’71) in Detroit and earned her bachelor and master’s degrees from Wayne State University. She then proudly served her country as a U.S. Naval Officer in its Medical Commissioned Corps as an audiologist in Spartanburg, SC and then, later, at the University of Texas in Dallas at the Callier Speech and Language Center. Miles graduated with a B.S. Degree in Medical Technology from the “We chose WC because we University of Michigan and then earned an MBA in Finance from Eastern Michigan University. He also earned a B.A. in Classical Languages and wanted our kids to receive a Philosophy from South Carolina’s Furman University and later attended the good Catholic education. As a University of Dallas before returning to the Grand Rapids area in 1986 with Cecelia and their then four children.