GICC Moments of Grace

I feel an instant kinship with Monika Peters. The first day she enters the doors of GICC to be our new band director, I know we will be friends. Monika Peters It's because she's tall. To be exact, she's the same height I am. We look at each other eye to eye - a rare  novelty for both of us - and in that space of time I know she knows what I know. About being taller than every boy in middle school. About having to wear boy clothes because the girl stuff never reaches our long limbs. About finally embracing who we are. "After all that awkwardness, I got to college," she reflects, "and I thought, Wow! Being tall is great!" Her enviable model thinness makes even a pair of jeans seem elegant. If that isn't enough, she's multi-talented. This last month she performs in GILT's "A Little House Christmas" as the difficult Mrs. Olson. She enjoys acting and performing in various venues, but her real love is music. Music, Monika Pe...

It took years to configure my Christmas village. Every house and fir tree and miniature character was precious to me, and I could hardly wait to arrange the entire little community over the top of our entertainment center every Yuletide. But I wasn't stupid. Christmas villages were really just grownup versions of doll houses for women like me sharing houses with husbands and sons who agonized over NFL teams and peed on toilets. We deserved something, too. Kenny, me, Tommy. 2006 My Christmas village boasted a towering lit Cathedral - which didn't necessarily blend well with the cozy antique shop or the quaint corner grocer - but nevertheless filled me with delight. A couple staring dreamily at each other over steaming mugs of coffee shadowed the window of the local restaurant, and all throughout the village were busy shoppers, children on sleds, and romantic skaters drifting arm in arm around the frozen pond. Life was perfect in the Christmas village. If only for a...

School's out for the summer. Father Scott Harter, GICC chaplain The GICC staff, having completed reports and shoved pesky textbooks aside, repairs to the relaxed atmosphere of Whitey's to eat, drink and make merry. School chaplain Father Scott Harter sits across from us at a long table and trades laughing barbs with my husband John. Meandering around us is an elderly woman, not quite steady on her feet, who pauses at our table. "What's all this?" she scans our group of jubilant teachers. "This," Father Scott explains kindly, "is the Central Catholic faculty celebrating the last day of school." But she's not listening. In her mild state of inebriation, she suddenly becomes transfixed by Father Scott's hair and begins to stroke it. "Yeah, we're all having dinner together," he continues with unfailing politeness as the woman twines her fingers through his curls. I assume she's an overly-friendly parishione...

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...