Who all remembers the stained glass to the right?
It is from Marguette Hall.

From Fr. Joe Eagan, S.J. '40

Hi Tom: Thanks so much for your yeoman work for Campion grads. Thanks to Bill Kelly's (Class '41) prodding, here is my response.

I was at Campion as a student 1936-40 and as a priest, senior English and Religion teacher, Senior Counselor, head of Sodality and the Yearbook and big booster of our teams and athletes. Now I'm 93, still active and in good health thank God, am retired here at St. Camillus and have the dubious honor of being the oldest of 56 retired Jesuit brothers.

To keep sane here after 20 wonderful years teaching theology at the University of San Francis and 15 equally wonderful years with wonderful people as associate pastor in the SF Bay Area, I wrote a book on the contemporary Church, Vatican II Renewal, Path to the Future of the Church.

I greatly enjoy attending reunions of my own '40 class and reunions of the classes I taught; I am inspired by each of you Campion grads and your gratitude for and loyalty to Campion and your Jesuit teachers.

God's special blessings on you and your loved ones.

Fr. Joe Eagan, S.J.

The all-class Chicago golf tournament - August 1st. They are looking for response my July 1. Invitation details and application.

From Ron Ruble '54...

It was mid-April and we were in the midst of a Wisconsin spring heat wave. The snows of winter had long since melted, and the boys of Campion Jesuit High School were starting to think of outdoor activities. This sudden period of warmth after a hard, cold winter caused everyone to behave with a certain friskiness, like young colts released after being closed up in a barn stall. We discarded our parkas, mittens and ice skates, in favor of baseball bats and track shoes. Chuck Baldwin even put away his ski's. As a result of our exuberance over the arrival of spring, the Jebbies, as we affectionately called them, had doubled their efforts to make sure that we didn't get carried away with spring fever. The clash between this increased oversight and our youthful enthusiasm resulted in an upward spike in attendance at 'JUG'. JUG attendance that year literally burst the seams of the classroom facilities where JUG was held. It was standing room only.

But we were full of spit and vinegar, and were not going to be harnessed by anyone. The Jebbies may have known more about Latin and Chemistry than we did, and perhaps one or two other things, but we were well educated in the art of screwing off.

On one particular Saturday, we made plans to take advantage of the weather during our free time. We were going to make the day extra special, by having a rodeo of sorts. Our objective lay across the highway, past Ma's Restaurant towards the bluffs beyond. There was a farm at the end of the road, and we were going to search the fields below the bluffs and hunt down the old farmer's cows, and then ride them. That was the plan.

It was Bob Breisacher's idea, and he claimed that he did it all the time. I wasn't too sure about that, but the idea had my vote, and several others joined in, including Bob Mckinney, Jim Marbaugh, Tom Wolf, Jim Horn, Dick Carey, Dick 'Moose' Adler, and George Braasch. This was going to be crazy fun, as I had never ridden a cow before. But we figured, 'Send Campion a boy, and get back a Cowpuncher'. It had a certain ring to it. We were even starting to talk and think like cowboys. Marbaugh even walked like one, but that was normal for him. He could take any hair-brained idea someone offered and carry it to another level of craziness. He was in a class by himself.

So after lunch, off we went in groups of two or three, hoping to avoid tipping off the Jebbies to our destination. We paused in front of Ma's Restaurant but didn't go in. We looked around cautiously, making sure that we weren't being followed. I was with Breisacher and Wolf, and once we were certain that we were in the clear, we started running towards the bluffs, laughing and shoving each other along the way.

We stopped at the end of the farmer's corn field just before the incline into the bluffs and waited for the others. Soon everyone arrived and we were ready to go. We fanned out in no specific order and began looking for cows. It wasn't long before McKinney found a big old cow. We joked that it probably reminded him of one of his girlfriends. She was white, with large brown spots, very fat, and quite broad across the backside. Braasch gave a loud whistle through his teeth and soon the group of wanna-be cowpokes had regrouped in a circle around 'Bessie' the cow. Some of us were nervous but everyone put on a good front of false bravado. The cow just kept chewing on the shoots of fresh green spring grass, looking around the group, returning each stare with a stare of her own.

"OK, who's going first?" someone asked.

Breisacher took the challenge. "I'll ride her. After all, it was my brilliant idea. Everyone get out of the way".

Just to set the stage, I'll tell you that Breisacher was about five-foot-nine, with lifts on, and a little bit stocky. He certainly wasn't going to win many awards for the high jump, if you get my drift.

But, throwing caution to the wind, he took a running start and jumped on the cow's back. That was it. Nothing happened. He just laid there where he landed, arms on one side of the cow and legs dangling on the other side. There was a slight hesitation from the group, and then the laughter and guffaws began. Breisacher struggled, to no avail. Did you ever see a turtle try to right itself? Well, it was something like that, only funnier. After a few moments, Carey stepped forward, grabbed one of Bob's feet and pushed upwards. Not much happened, so 'Moose' Adler and Wolf came to his assistance, but they over calculated and pushed Breisacher all the way over the cow. He landed on the other side of the animal on the muddy ground. This was too funny. It reminded me of the Keystone cops in action. There was loud laughter from the other wranglers, accompanied by some choice words uttered by Breisacher; words not normally used by a good Catholic boy.

Things settled down, and with a little effort, we finally got Breisacher back on the cow. We celebrated with loud cheers and clapping. Our shouts of "hi ho silver", along with raucous laughter, echoed through the bluffs. It was turning out to be a grand day. Breisacher was jumping up and down, digging his heels into the cow's flanks, yelling "Giddy-up!" The guy was acting like he knew his stuff.

The cow still didn't budge. A new wave of laughter followed. The cow was becoming funnier than Breisacher.

Some of the other guys tried to give the cow a helping hand, pushing and shoving, but the cow still didn't react. Finally, Wolf helped the cow along with the prodding slap of a stick across the backside. That old cow sure moved then. She dropped a cow pie, which splattered all over Carey's shoes, and away she went. This was followed by whoops and howls from the rodeo crowd. Breisacher held onto his mount, looking like he was Roy Rogers and Gene Autry combined. The cheers rose as our group ran alongside the bronco, yelling and slapping the cow for encouragement. The cow just "mooed" in response, and the cheers and laughter grew louder.

Suddenly, someone yelled, "What the hell is going on here? Stop right where you are you little sons-of-bitches".

Whoa! That didn't sound like a friendly voice to me.

It was the farmer, and he was definitely unhappy. He was holding a shotgun, which looked more like a howitzer, pointing it directly at us. I didn't stick around to answer his question or even consider it. I just took off running, heading into the closest cornfield as fast as my legs could carry me, seeking escape. All I could think about was getting caught and what it would mean to face the Jebbies' wrath. Not this cadet, I figured. My survival instincts kicked in, and I focused on getting my butt out of there, and fast.

"Stop right there you little bass-terds", the farmer shouted.

Into the corn field I went. Corn stalks slapped at my body but didn't slow me down. Breisacher was on one side of me and Braasch on the other side. All three of us were trying to set a new Olympic record for the hundred-yard dash. Then the farmer actually opened fire. It was two shots, a double barrel. I hit the ground and Breisacker tripped over me. I guess that you could say that I saved his life that day. On the other hand, Braasch didn't hesitate. He figured it was no time for heroics on his part, so he didn't even slow down. I heard the shotgun pellets pop, pop, popping into the corn stalks. Then silence, and I was up and running again, finally breaking clear of the corn field and reaching the road. I heard two more shots. The farmer had reloaded and let go another volley. Braasch was still running about a hundred yards in front of me, his long legs eating up the ground. He had the right idea, so I gave chase.

Once at a safe distance from the mad farmer and his bovines, we met up outside of Ma's, where we waited for the others. This was major trouble and we knew it. What if that old farmer actually shot one of us? We would be subject to mass expulsion. The funeral would be a secondary event.

After about five minutes everyone was accounted for, and we breathed a little easier. It occurred to us that we were going to need a plan. We decided to all split up, some going to the library, some to the gym and others going to the smoker. We took a quick vow of silence and agreed to wipe our memories of anything to do with cows. Cows? In Wisconsin? Never heard of such a thing. We felt secure in the knowledge that it would be quite easy for this group to play dumb.

Yes, as anticipated, the stoolie farmer phoned Father Kloster, S.J., the Principal, aka 'The Top Jebbie', and made claims that we curdled Old Bessie's milk for at least two weeks. All I knew was that if we got caught, Mr. 'Einstein' Breisacher would have to confess and take the rap. It was only fair, one life to save the many.

However, his allegiance was never tested. Try as they might, the crack Jebbie investigation team never solved the case of the farmer's traumatized cow. A few of us were actually questioned, but we didn't break. We had dodged another bullet, and that skeleton was buried away in the overstuffed closet that contains Campion's secret youthful indiscretions. It has remained buried since 1952...............that is, until now.

From Richard Rawe '48...

Ed "Lash" Carruthers came from a dirt poor family. He looked poor. His face was worn at sixteen. He wore the same old clothes every day. He walked briskly with a stoop. He had no friends. You won't find his graduation picture in the 1948 Campion Knight. His only saving grace was that he could type like crazy. That's why he was appointed to the Campionette staff. He was the typist. Had been for a couple of years.

His typewriter was located in a corner of the composition room in the basement of Marquette Hall, the room where the staff writers collected every other Friday night to frantically write the final articles for the Campionette that was to be printed the next day. Lash was always there, bent over his machine, fingers flying at the keyboard.

I didn't hang out with Lash at all. I treated him like most other students did: as a non-person. He was a heavy smoker, always seen with a cigarette between his lips, always on his way somewhere or sitting at his prized typewriter.

Lash's mother mailed him a dollar bill once a month, most months. He would look for the letter daily and when it finally arrived, clutch it to his heart and run off secretly to open the precious envelop.

One month, Frank Gruesen '48, prankster, ball fighter and varsity left halfback, caught up with Lash and tore the dollar bill from Lash's hands then slowly lit the bill with a cigarette lighter while Lash looked on in horror as his precious dollar went up in smoke. Lash fell to the ground and sat balling like a baby and rocking back and forth in disbelief. Frank finally pulled a five-dollar bill from his own wallet and handed it to Lash.

The Campionette, "Ette" to the staff, was published every two weeks throughout the scholastic year. It would be printed on Saturday downtown in Prairie at a publishing company that also published a local weekly newspaper. The Ette was distributed to students at evening study hall by a group of dedicated volunteers led by Ray O'Brian '48. The editors and writers would collapse in relief as another issue made it through the grueling production process. Father Thomas Stokes, S.J., our mentor and protector, would relax in his easy chair and wonder at the doggedness of the Ette crew. Every two weeks they put out an eight-page newspaper and somehow kept up with their studies, athletics and other extracurricular activities.

During the two weeks between issues nothing much happened in the Ette room except for Lash plucking away at his machine. Our gallant photographer, Bob Merkle, was always on the lookout for great shots around campus and our Sports Editor, Jim Rogge, and his sports writers were kept busy with varsity and intramural news. But the rest of the staff usually tended to such things as term papers and skiing and choir practice.

As Editor-in-Chief, I had a few minor tasks to perform, such as Letters-To-The-Editor and assigning articles to writers. The Ette was mailed out to a variety of readers including families, the major Chicago newspapers and other Catholic high schools at a subscription price of $1.50 per year. Once in a while one of these readers would respond with a letter to the editor. One reader who kept himself anonymous regularly mailed in a postcard from Valparaiso, the county seat of Porter County, Indiana; he never provided any text other that "Howdy."

I wrote a regular column called "Ed Libs," which I intended to reflect the way I, the Editor, saw the Campion world. I came to find out many students thought the column was written by Ed "Lash" Carruthers. I also provided a short-short story from time to time and a narrative poem.

After the dinner meal on Friday nights before publication the staff would congregate in the Ette room first to provide outrageous excuses why they had not completed their assignments during the previous two weeks. Then, panic-stricken, they would grab pencils and paper and sit down at the composition table and begin feverishly to write their articles. Lash Carruthers would take the handwritten papers as soon as they were completed and clack away at his ancient typewriter turning out near faultless accounts of debate team accomplishments, exam schedules, the concert in the gym last Wednesday night, how the Varsity beat the dickens out of Edgewood, etc. Any typed article already sent to the printer would be returned as a column proof, a narrow strip of paper with the article printed on it just as it would be in the Ette. We used the proof to compose a mockup of the paper showing where the article would go on the page and where photos were to be placed.

On Saturday morning on the day of printing, a select few of us congregated at the printing shop in Prairie around 8:00am. I was always there, and Charlie Mudd '48 (News Editor), Bob Bransley '48 (Managing Editor), and Jim Rogge '48 (Sports Editor). There were several printing shop personnel assigned to guide us through the day.

Before the digital age, movable type was composed by hand for each page. In hot metal typesetting, as used to prepare the Ette, we used a Linotype machine with a keyboard to cast individual lines of text known as slugs. The slugs were tightly bound together to make up a form, with all letter faces exactly the same "height to paper", creating an even surface of type. The form could be proofread and individual slugs replaced as necessary. The form was placed in a press, inked, and an impression made on paper.

Bransley shows Rogge how to make a slug

We each had our favorite jobs to do. For instance, Bransley learned to work the Linotype machine, Mudd liked to set headlines and I enjoyed proofreading the forms. Mudd would sit at the font cabinet and select letters one by one from the trays to make up the headline which was then transferred to the form. Bransley would sit at the Linotype pecking slowly at the keyboard producing hot slugs of type. I stood at the form table looking for misspellings in the slugs and headlines. What you see when you look down on the form is a mirror image of the printed page, so proofreading was a challenge. Occasionally an article would not fit its intended place on the page and had to be modified.

Late in the afternoon, all the preparations were done, forms were loaded in the press and a proof copy printed on paper. Final corrections were made and we were ready for the printing press.

Tired from a full day's work, we were back at school for dinner. The printing company printed all the necessary copies of the Ette and delivered them to the school for distribution by about 7:00pm.

I always wondered if the school paid Lash Carruthers for his typing work. I was sure he worked on more that just the Ette. One Friday I went down to the Ette room where I expected to find Lash at his typewriter but the room was empty. I could find no one who had seen Lash all day. I went up to Father Stokes' room to see if he had any information. He had, but he was not sharing. Lash had disappeared into the outside world for reasons undisclosed. I never saw him again.

From Bob Anderson '64

While I must have spent many hours during my four years at Campion helping to get the 'ette into print on time, I have only a few memories of those days now, some 50+ years later.

I do recall that we worked as a team to get things done, with assistance from anyone interested in helping: writers, typists, photographers, layout editors, proof readers, and distributors. Mark Lochner and I were co-editors senior year. We met frequently in my room in Marquette Hall to cobble together one issue after another.

My first writing assignment for the 'ette came in the fall of freshman year. I volunteered (or was volunteered) to write an article recapping the month's events on the intramural football fields. My cardinal sin of Procrastination interfered with producing the article on time, and I ended up submitting it just before the editors were headed into town to have the articles set up in the linotype machine at Courier Printing. I was curious about all this and someone had the patience to give me a brief description of the process, from writing articles, to laying out the pages, to distributing the finished newsletter. My interest led to further assignments I guess, although I'm sure someone scolded me for holding things up: "Just Write the Damn Story!" I think I must have said the same thing to some of the slow-poke writers Mark and I encountered when it came to be our turn to put all the pieces together.

I attended the 40th Reunion for the Class of '64 in 2004, and stayed an extra day to wander around Prairie du Chien a bit. I stopped in at the Courier office and chatted with Jack Howe's son, who had taken over the printing business from his father. He graduated from Prairie High but was always a fan of the Knights. In fact he showed me the original engraving used to print the image of the Knight on his horse. It was not for sale. I told him about the many hours Mark and I had spent in his dad's printing office, proof reading the first drafts of the articles and photos that composed each issue. His dad's visible and audible irritation when we requested corrections that should have been made in the original copy rather than in the already set up linotype version was as powerful a corrective to unwanted behavior as was the Jesuits' threat of Lost Weekends and Short Bounds.

Jack's son told me that his dad was '79 and in good health, but not in town that day, so I did not get to see him in person. He has certainly earned his Star in Heaven for producing the 'ette for so many years.

--Robert Anderson
3/19/2016
[EDIT] No procrastination noted this time!

Ghost of Joe Campion Mischief...

Joe Campion pulls from the ethers and squeals on others recollections...

I (Paunicka) use to go hunting pigeons and other gameland birds at a pig farm on that street by the bluffs. Farmer was ok with it. He just asked that I don't shoot his pigs. I didn't, but I bet I put about a hundred shots into the roof of his barn.

Lappe and I (Sluka) got "shot at" with buckshot by a farmer one Wednesday afternoon at that hill where we erected that old car rope tow [EDIT: ski slope tow] in the winter. I forget if it had a name. At any rate, Lappe brought a shotgun from home and we were trying to shoot squirrels in the trees on that hill (don't worry the squirrels all survived). We must have wandered into some farmer's property and he fired off a shotgun. I did not see whether he shot in the air or at us, but it still counts doesn't it?

Fitz and I (Clark) were prowling around a huge pig farm between HWY 8 and the bluffs. There is a barn there and it was full of pigs. We heard a truck roar up and stop on the other side of the barn. We took off through the corn fields. I looked behind me and just as he was entering the corn I saw a guy With A Shotgun! I ran like a Roadrunner in a zig zag pattern and then hit the dirt. About five minutes later, I could hear him around 15 feet from me. I looked to my right and then I saw the front of a shotgun barrel followed by a boot and then a leg and he Stopped! I froze and waited. He kept going! I waited about an hour and ran all the way to the highway. I caught up with Tom back in prison block B and was glad that he made it out. The Lappe story is much better. In our case no powder was fired!

Doug Agard '72 Released...

As I recall it was a warm late summer Sunday just after school had started. The year was 1969. It was one of those perfect days, clear blue sky and warm dry air. The five of us, Wills Ryan, Jim Ryan, Steve Sedgewick, Chris Braun and myself, found ourselves ambling south on the railroad tracks that ran behind Lucey Hall. We had no plan, we were just walking and talking. We also had no sense that railroad tracks were private property or that they could be a dangerous place to take a hike. Before we knew it we had made our way down to the bridge over the Wisconsin River. As we walked out onto the bridge we were at the mercy of any fast-moving passenger train, as there was no way off the bridge except to jump off the side. We were 15 years old and stupid enough to think that if a train came along we could outrun it. When we got over the river we decided to jump into the water and swim. How one or all of us did not break our necks jumping into the ever-changing depth of the Wisconsin River I will never know.

As we walked home from our swim, just north of the bridge, along the side of the tracks we found a small railroad utility car, about a 6'x8' flatbed. It was chained to a post with a rusty chain and padlock. There were weeds growing up around the car and padlock; it looked abandoned. Well, it wasn't long before we had broken the lock and had liberated the railroad car.

Where we were standing was the perpendicular intersection of two railroad tracks. The north-south line which we had walked on and an east-west line. Now this east-west set of tracks was all rusty and looked if not abandoned, certainly little used. We set the railroad car on the east- west tracks and started pushing. Three would ride and two would push. I actually thought of Father Scott at this moment, a body in motion tends to stay in motion. By changing pushers we got the car going as fast as we could run and we could maintain that speed.

This east-west set of tracks led back into Prairie and ended just west of Campion. In fact, if you ever walked to the Spit and Whistle you would have walked over those tracks. We pushed that car back just west of campus, took it off of the tracks and went to supper. After supper we went back to the tracks, put the car back on and started back to were we started. We had taken pads of butter from the dining hall so we could grease the axles to go faster. At any small hill all of us would push to get up but had a free fast ride going down. We pushed it passed the north-south set of tracks and turned around and pushed it back again. We crossed the north-south set of tracks several times unaware that with each crossing we were sending a signal up and down the line that a train was on the track. Trains on the north-south set of tracks were stopping and waiting for some perceived train on our track. We were disrupting travel and commerce up and down that track along the Mississippi.

We kept this up until dark and started pushing it back to campus. We were out in the country, several miles from school when in the distance we could see the running lights of a car by the side of the tracks. I said "Let's get the heck out of here" and Jim Ryan said "No, let's go see who it is." I thought Jim was street smart so I deferred to him, much to my chagrin. So Jim and I left the car and our three friends in the dark and walked toward the running lights. We got about 50 feet away and a bright flood light hit us in the eyes and out of the car stepped Crawford County Sheriff Childs. He pumped a shotgun and said "Hold it right there and put your hands over your heads." I don't know about Jim but I almost soiled myself. We got in the back seat of the squad car and Sheriff Childs said "Ok boys, who were the other two guys with you?" Having acquired my vast legal knowledge from TV, I said " Before I say anything I would like to speak to an attorney." Sheriff Childs turned and looked at me from the front seat and said "Listen son, you are in a lot of trouble here so you better start talking." Ok then. He only asked for two names, not realizing there were three others. Jim and I conferred and since Sedgewick had the most demerits and was hanging by a thread already, we gave up the other two.

The sheriff had been parking in the driveway of a farm house. As we drove away he rolled down his window and said to the farmer's wife, "Thanks for the melons, Mable". That always struck me as funny.

We were hauled down to the sheriff's station and booked. Father O'Conner was called to come and get us and also told of the other two desperadoes. As he was leaving Lucey Hall he passed three muddy, sweaty sophomores. When Jim and I were caught, the other guys ran back to campus through farmers' cornfields and they got covered in mud.

About a week later we were called to Father O'Conner's room where there was an attorney from the railroad. He told us how dangerous our actions had been and how we had disrupted rail traffic. He also informed us of the penalty for damaging railroad property, $10,000 fine and 10 years in prison. He said, "How would you boys like it if you were sent some place where you had to wake up by a bell, go to bed by a bell...". He stopped, looked at Father O'Conner, looked back at us and said, "Aw, never mind".

As punishment we had to pay $10 to replace the lock and promise never to go back on the tracks again. The Jesuits on the other hand had us in Saturday night detention [EDIT: JUG] for months. Sedgewick was never caught or punished.

John Duskey '63 Remembers...

This large room on the first floor in Campion Hall was a common meeting place for us in the 1959-60 school year. We remember that room, with all sorts of games and activities available. The rec room was also the place where we went for mail call. Change was given by the Jesuit prefect at assigned times. The prefects were Mr. James Egan, Mr. Ted Hottinger, Mr. Roland Teske, Mr James O'Leary, Mr. Gregory Lucey, and in the second semester, Mr. James Finnerty.

The rec room featured, if I remember correctly, two billiard tables, eight pool tables, and three ping-pong tables. There was a rack for storage of pool cues. You could borrow one at school, or bring your own. Chalk was provided. If we think back carefully on those days, we might recall who had some noticeable skills in bowling and ping pong. Can anybody remember who were the real pool sharks?

There were two bowling alleys, complete with manual pin-setting racks. If you wanted to bowl, you had to get someone to be your pinsetter. Setting pins was a good way to earn a few coins, but those coins might soon be spent in the vending machines. Several common candy bars were available for five cents each, and the soda machine offered cola, various fruit flavored sodas, and, of course, Green River. I discovered that you could change your choice mid-stream and mix cola with orange soda and then add some Green River at the very end. This was my first experience with mixed drinks.

The sound system was installed and maintained by Mike Murphy, of our class, who was from La Crosse, Wisconsin. He was interested in electronics, and played tapes that included a variety of songs. Tony Skemp has kept in touch with Mike over the years, and, after some consideration and discussion about the songs we regularly heard, I went to work on YouTube.

I am posting here a list of what I call the Top Ten Tunes from the Freshman Rec Room. The choices are purely subjective, and are not given ordinal numbers. Included are YouTube links, in case you want to watch and listen. Notice the videos for "We Got Love" (Bobby Rydell) and "Danny Boy" (Conway Twitty) are taken from Dick Clark's Saturday night show; the TV cameras were instructed to occasionally show teenagers in the audience chewing the sponsor's product, Beech-Nut gum.

There were history lessons here. The video for Johnny Horton's "Battle of New Orleans" includes some representative artwork that tells the story. Stonewall Jackson's "Waterloo" recalls three men who each encountered their own Waterloo: Adam, in the Garden of Eden, "little General Napoleon of France" (who was actually 5'6" tall), and Tom Dooley. The Kingston Trio told the story of Tom Dooley, a native of North Carolina and a former Confederate soldier, in another of these classic hits. For a more complete story, see Story of Tom Dooley

When Billy Grammer's "Gotta Travel On" played, I always noticed the words "He's been on the chain gang too long." and thought of the chain gang as the two extras on intramural football teams who held the ten-yard chain. Being on the chain gang too long would indicate someone was not a particularly valuable football player. I know all about that.

Recently I commented to a few people that Bobby Rydell's hairstyle in "We Got Love" looked like a not-too-successful imitation of the hairstyle of our classmate Bill Kraus. Rydell's receding hair line became more obvious in some of his later videos. At age 17, Rydell was already tall; he didn't need to add an extra inch or two to his height. It's not like he was a 5'2" high school freshman.

As we moved along to Lucey Hall the next year, we still had a rec room in the basement, but it wasn't really the same, because we had our own rooms. But in that period of time, in our own lives, the rec room offered us a great opportunity for socialization, which was and is a major part of the education of young people. The freshman rec room may have been among the best educational experiences of our four years at Campion.

From Pat Mower '64

Don't know if anyone will be interested, but here is a little tidbit from my years (1960-64).

After a basketball, maybe it was football, game, we went to the knew "malt shop" in Hoffman hall. This promised to be a good thing for all of us. A place where we could actually "almost" co-mingle with people of the female persuasion.

As I was coming down the steps to go back to Marquette Hall, someone asked me who I was going to take to the military ball. After all, I was a Staff Sergeant! I replied I didn't have a date. So someone said, "What're ya gonna do"?

Right at that moment I decided. I turned around, and yelled out, "Anybody want to go to the Military Ball with me"? A girl from Aquinas said she would be happy to. I believe, can't remember, her first name was Diane. You know, the Campion Military Ball was kind of a big thing for us, and during my Junior year I had taken Yoland Horgan.....from Sinsinawa.

As you can see from the picture, Diane was a good lookin' gal, and back then, I could fit into even my USAF Uniform. We had a great time, as I remember, but that is one sided, I am not sure that poor Diane would say that. If I could ever find her, I would thank her and apologize.

I know it sounds very bad and whatever, but as a young man, having that good looking gal on your arm was one thing. We got no "social skill" training as my good friend Pat Kelly told me. It was the one thing that he believed they should have done.....but the early 60s were a totally different time, and nowhere as permissive as today.

Beat Aquinas!
Beat Wahlert!
Long Live Joe Campion!

Military Ball - 1955

Home Coming Queen, Carol Ann (Peterson) Chilson passed on Easter Sunday, 2016.

May choirs of angels lead you into paradise
And may the martyrs come to welcome you
To bring you home into the holy city
So you may dwell in new Jerusalem.
May holy angels be there at your welcoming
With all the saints who go before you there
That you may know the peace and joy of paradise
That you may enter into everlasting rest
----------sung to a traditional Irish melody

Fr. Bob Fitzgerald was called to eternal life on March 17, 2016. After ordination, he served as an English teacher at Campion from 1972 until the school closed in 1975. After 30 years of various assignments, he moved to the St. Camillus Jesuit Community, with the assignment to pray for the Church and for his brother Jesuits. His twin brother James, who served as a scholastic and history teacher at Campion from 1960 to 1963, has also been at St. Camillus since 2006.

His funeral Mass was said on March 23 at the San Camillo Chapel in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin. The presider was Fr. Doug Leonhardt, S.J. and Fr. James Fitzgerald was co-Celebrant, along with the many other Jesuits who were present. Music was provided by Roc O'Connor, S.J., Carol Werner, and Sean Teets, a novice in the Society of Jesus. Another novice, Adam Bohan, was the altar server for the Mass. The hymn "May Choirs of Angels" was sung by Sean Teets, nSJ, to the traditional Irish tune of "Danny Boy," not the Conway Twitty version.

The presence of a number of novices at St. Camillus is noteworthy: They are learning the ways of the St. Camillus community, and will be shifted to other apostolates as they become familiar with the full scope of the work of the Jesuit order. Adam Bohan, also a native of Omaha, told me that one of the great influences on his joining the Jesuits was the instruction and example of Rev. Msgr. Paul Witt, Campion class of 1963, who is presently pastor of SS. Mary and Joseph Church in Valparaiso, Nebraska.

John Duskey '63