October 26, 2020

5 days till National Vocation Awareness Week

#20 in a series of 25 short stories

July 18, 1997, I walked into the CYO/Camp Howard office for the first time as an employee.  The day coincided with my Mom’s birthday so an easy date to remember.  I shadowed the Executive Director until September 1^st, the beginning of the fiscal year.  I learned a ton during those three months and felt very fortunate to have the opportunity to learn from the sitting director.  I also realized we had a mess on our hands.  Relationships with Catholic entities such as the Catholic Sentinel did not exist.  There were no Catholics in the Catholic Youth Organization!  Not that everyone needs to be Catholic but with a name like that, someone should be!  There was a lot of dysfunction everywhere and I realized silently within myself that things needed cleaned up and it would take some time to get it to where it needed to be.

There are so many things I would like to say but feel it would be inappropriate in this format.  Suffice it to say, we rolled up our sleeves and got to work.  I found another mentor, this time a business mentor, in Dick Weigel, the Executive Board chair.  His daytime job was helping businesses liquidate that were not making it or helping them get back on their feet.  Camp Howard had just lost $127,000 at camp that summer so we were the perfect business for a guy like Dick.

Vocation awareness comment:  There were moments that had me shaking in my boots again, but each time I knew I had to confront the situations because if I didn’t who would?  I kept asking myself that question.  I continued to be grateful for the time to be able to spend in cleaning things up, but it was a daunting task that took me about 8 years to completely turn around.

October 25, 2020

6 days till National Vocation Awareness Week

#19 in a series of 25 short stories

During my last two years at Valley Catholic High School I was Vice Principal and Athletic Director.  Weekend events and weekday meetings kept me very busy.  Serving on the board at CYO/CH was eye opening to me as I had never had experiences with the organization other than reading about it in the Catholic Sentinel.

I had no intention of leaving the high school and would have been content to get my 50-year pin there.  I loved the school and being a part of the happenings there.  God had other plans for me, however, and when God calls, he always lays out a perfect plan.  At the end of two years on the board I had helped clean up some messes that were the result of poor leadership.  The board asked me if I would consider taking on leadership of the organization and I had to do some soul searching.  I was very comfortable at Valley Catholic, on campus, close to home, easily able to handle the conflict at this point in my life…God had me right where he wanted me, ready for the next assignment!

At the end of the 1997 school year, I said goodbye to a lot of great people whom I had worked with for many years.  It was terribly hard for me to leave the school.  I had gone from brand new teacher to the inner workings of administration.  I had a perspective and vision that 15 years at an institution can bring merely through experience with a wide variety of situations.   I was writing databases on a new program called “Filemaker” that I purchased at Egg Head Software.  AOL was just getting a good start in the tech world.  CYO/Camp Howard did not have a computer yet.

I was moving from second line administration to first line where the buck stops here.  Fortunately, I knew the board members well, and they were great people.  I was about to get a look from the inside out and what I would find was not pretty. 

• I spent the time from 1997 through 2001 outside of the community of the Sisters of St. Mary of Oregon.  I returned July 26, 2001 on the feast of St. Anne.  I helped with family issues at this time and lived with my mother, Cynthia, in Hazeldale, WA.

Vocation awareness comment:  We are all called to a vocation whether it be marriage, single life, priestly life or religious life.