GICC Moments of Grace

Central Catholic senior Reyna Ramirez and John We're lucky to teach, my husband John reminds me. Our GICC high school kids keep us young. I like to think this is true. My students regularly introduce words to my vocabulary, like "lit" and "savage".  Not as in a lit lamp or a savage tiger but as in, "The homecoming dance was so  lit , and the music was freaking  savage ." Yeah. I'm hip. Just lately, however, I feel old. It's because of John. One night in August, he wakes me at two a.m. to tell me he needs to be driven to the hospital. "Something's wrong with my heart," he says. There is not, incidentally, a more traumatic way to be jarred awake. If only he'd twist my bottom lip with a pair of pliers instead. It's not a heart attack, the emergency doctor explains, but atrial fibrillation - a heart arrhythmia which, left untreated, can result in stroke - just like all the commercials say. He instructs us to...

At the opposite end of the school hallway, I spy his unmistakable silhouette against a flash of sunlight - the big solid frame, arms slightly akimbo. Howard Schumann Not for the first time do I choke down the lump in my throat. Howard Schumann is leaving us. After 45 years. After two generations of kids. After a lifetime of service to the school he loves. Shu seems to have come with the building, familiar as the worn tile in the lobby or the iconic circle drive. Mike Rohweder, our former student turned school business manager, swears to God he can still smell Mr. Kayl's popcorn every time he sees Shu surveying his kingdom from the doorway of the old gym - now officially renamed the Grand Island Central Catholic Howard Schumann Gymnasium. "They used to just call it the Old Gym," Howard laughs. "Now they'll call it the Old Howard Schumann Gym." I guess everybody figures if we name things after him, we don't really lose him. In fact, since he...

Dear Central Catholic Class of 2018, Look at you - all puffed up with pride and so happy to leave us. Somehow you've convinced yourselves that graduation day, with all its pomp and circumstance, is completely about you. And why? Because you're selfish and self-absorbed, that's why.  Here's a news flash: This day really belongs to your parents. Remember them? The people who gave you life and slung you over their shoulders all night when you were colicky and held your hand in the clinic that time you cracked your knee open? Graduation day, in fact, has virtually nothing to do with you. Class of 2018, Prom I repeat. It has nothing to do with you . Why did I even start this letter to a bunch of clueless kids? Never mind.  Go snap chat or tweet or hash tag or whatever it is you do as you constantly hover over your phones to ignore the adults in your lives. I'm writing to your parents instead. It's time they knew the truth. Sorry to tell you ...

"The Oracle of Wisdom", my husband John calls him. He says it in jest, but Keith Kester, long time middle school history teacher, somehow makes you believe he has all the answers. The kids believe it anyway. And really gullible first year teachers. Mr. Keith Kester Kester arrives at Grand Island Central Catholic in 1981, a skinny boy in a too-big tie proudly carting a brand new briefcase. Just graduated from Doane University, Mr. Kester's a serious young teacher. The shiny briefcase is an emblem of professionalism, and Kester - just a tiny bit intimidated by the hundreds of sweaty, hormonal adolescents pouring into his classroom - holds his students to strict accountability. "If I hear any of you talking," he announces that first day in a quaking voice, "you will write one hundred sentences after school." Before the end of the year, however, Mr. Kester is noticeably relaxed. He ditches the briefcase along with the tie, and by Christmas he...

She gets us every time with her dead-pan humor. Ask Kerry O'Connor, GICC science teacher, about her favorite part of the school day, and she fires back without batting an eyelash, "Three-thirty." It's not true, of course. Well, maybe it is. Mrs. O'Connor has cherished her almost 25 years at Central Catholic. Even when opportunities arise to work elsewhere for a heck of a lot more money, she declines the offers. Mrs. O'Connor, middle front, with her second period anatomy and physiology class. "I would never leave GICC," she says. "This school has always been a safe place for me, and from the very first day I walked in the door, I felt welcome." Teaching has always been in her blood. She recalls playing school with her sister - complete with a blackboard, desk and books. She credits a high school biology and anatomy teacher at North Platte High School, however, for guiding her to a passion for science. "I love life science ...

Blake Kyriss is a loner, a stocky middle school boy who struggles in school and speaks with a lisp. I can see misery all over his small face and am not surprised that he is absent from school regularly. Little wonder for a kid who hides out by himself and begs to walk the halls unseen. He prefers never to be singled out for attention, and all of us worry and wonder how this shy, lost boy will ever graduate. We underestimate, however, the powers of Mr. James Lowry. James Lowry, GICC   The first day Blake walks into James Lowry's ninth grade geography class will change his life forever. "You!" Mr. Lowry shouts. Blake looks up, frightened. "Me?" "Yeah, you!" Under fierce eyebrows, Lowry glares across the room. "Have you talked to a single person today?" Blake glances around to make sure he is, in fact, the recipient of this outrage.  "Uh, no, Sir, " he mumbles painfully. Lowry shakes his head in mock disgust. "T...

My back aches. This morning I bend to grab a fluff of cat hair from the kitchen floor and very nearly fail to come back up. It's always this way - a small mundane task that becomes an agonizing reminder of my ageing body. Third period 8th grade English. The thing is, I'm not in the mood today for the eighth grade boy who surges into my classroom to dog whistle at the top of his lungs. Nor do I care to deal with uncharged Chrome books, late homework, or the middle school girl who abruptly vomits on my shoes. I'm old. I'm tired. And my back is killing me. It's eons ago that I am in the second grade lugging a small footstool to my bedroom - pretending it's my classroom desk - to carefully arrange two pencils and a Big Chief tablet on its surface. "Boys and Girls," I mimic my teacher Sister William Jane, "let's not have any funny business back there." Fr. Jim Golka Even then, school is my first love. From beginning ...