St. Mary gala is a testament to Oak Ridge school’s legacy and future
By Dan McWilliams
The community of St. Mary School in Oak Ridge turned out in full May 3 for a Diamond Anniversary Gala.
The 75th-anniversary event in the school gym, attended by 160, paid a well-deserved tribute to the Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia Congregation whose teachers have staffed the school since its founding in 1950. The evening included a catered dinner; silent and live auctions; talks by principal Sister Mary John Slonkosky, OP; alumnus and former St. Mary pastor Father Chris Michelson; former pastor Father Michael Woods; and the presentation of a state Senate joint resolution from Lt. Gov. Randy McNally, another St. Mary alum.
John Deinhart emceed the gala, which was capped with dancing to the music of the Love, Peace & Happiness Band from Chattanooga.
Father Michelson graduated from St. Mary School in 1968, having completed all eight grades there. He has been a priest for 45 years, including six from 1988 to 1994 as pastor of St. Mary. Now retired from parish work and serving St. Joseph School in Knoxville and Knoxville Catholic High School, he said he well remembers his St. Mary School days and walking to school.
“I grew up less than a block from here. Our property adjoined the church property,” he said. “There’s a great legacy here. I have great, fond memories of St. Mary’s.”
Father Chris Michelson, a St. Mary School alum and former pastor there, delivers remarks during the 75th-anniversary gala. (Photo Dan McWilliams)
Father Michelson says he owes his priestly vocation to his faith-filled family and to the Dominican Sisters at St. Mary. The Sisters “absolutely” led him to the priesthood, including Sister Mary Grace, OP, who never taught the future priest but made an early prediction about him.
“She was always very close with our family. She took a special interest in me. I think starting in fifth or sixth grade, whenever she was here, she kept saying, ‘You’re going to be a priest someday,’ and I said, ‘Sister, no, I’m not going to be a priest,’ so she knew more than I knew,” Father Michelson recalled.
In his talk at the gala, Father Michelson mentioned the Chapel on the Hill, the nondenominational church that originally hosted services for all faith traditions when Oak Ridge was founded in 1943, the same year St. Mary Parish began. Founding pastor and future Monsignor Joseph Siener picked an early Mass time for Catholics at the chapel.
“Monsignor Siener chose 5:30 a.m. Sunday for Mass because the Catholics were the only ones who would get up that early to go to Mass,” Father Michelson said.
The priest’s first-grade classroom—and its nearly five dozen desks—is pictured in a hallway at St. Mary School.
“If you count how many desks were in that room, believe it or not there were 55 of us in my first-grade class. Fifty-five—and one teacher, one Sister,” Father Michelson said.
Sister Mary Grace continued her gentle nudging even when Father Michelson attended Oak Ridge High School.
“She was still here. ‘When are you going to tell everybody you’re going to seminary?’ I said, ‘I’m not going to the seminary.’ But I do have great memories of St. Mary’s and Sister Mary Grace in particular, all the Dominican Sisters I had through the years,” the alumnus said.
Father Michelson asked his audience to “go figure the long-term effects of what we’re doing” in Catholic education.
“Long-term effects: that’s what we are about in our Catholic schools,” he said. “We’re putting and planting seeds, and for many of us those seeds take a long time to germinate, while for others it happens almost instantaneously. We are the sowers. Our Catholic schools are the sowers of what it is we believe and in how we live our faith. I’m certainly proud to be an alumnus of St. Mary’s School. There are great years, great memories, but I’m most especially thankful for those seeds that were planted … the seeds that we continue to plant now and in the years to come.”
Father Woods served as pastor of St. Mary from 1996 to 2006, tied with the parish’s second shepherd and officiant at the school’s groundbreaking, Father Francis McRedmond (1956-66), for the longest pastorate at St. Mary.
“I’m so, so grateful for St. Mary Parish and St. Mary School. I love you, and I wouldn’t be here without you,” Father Woods said at the gala.
Sister Mary John called the diamond gala “a special time to be here with each of you.”
“On behalf of all the Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia, we just say thank you, thank you, thank you,” she said, adding that “the Sisters here tonight represent many more” and named several from the motherhouse in Nashville who sent their best wishes.
“Each of the Sisters knows that we are given the fruits of the labors of the Sisters who came before us and are given the task to carry it forward to the next Sisters and the next generation of students,” Sister Mary John said. “Not only have the Sisters been here 75 years, but many families have been as well, and so it’s a real joy that we get to teach children of children of children who have been a part of this parish from the beginning.”
Lt. Gov. Randy McNally, a St. Mary School alum, reads a resolution from the state legislature honoring St. Mary School on its diamond anniversary. School principal Sister Mary John Slonkosky, OP, is holding the framed resolution. (Photo Dan McWilliams)
The principal mentioned a humorous remark a student made about a crucifix but went on to say that “St. Mary’s students learn the true meaning of Jesus’ death, and they grow year by year to love Him more and more. And that’s really what it’s all about. That’s what the Sisters’ connection to St. Mary is all about. It’s about leading children to the love of Jesus Christ.”
Sen. McNally presented the resolution signed by himself, Sen. Ken Yager, Rep. Rick Scarbrough, House Speaker Cameron Sexton, and Gov. Bill Lee.
The state senator graduated from St. Mary in 1958 after starting at the school in its first year, “so it was the first class that went all the way through,” he said.
“It was a great school, a great school. I’m just very proud I went there. I learned a lot, and the teachers were super. There were a lot of good friends I met there,” forming friendships he still has, he said.
Sen. McNally remembers Father McRedmond along with Father John Scola, associate pastor of St. Mary in 1955-57, “and then Sister Mary Jane Frances, Sister Augusta, Sister Marilyn, and Mrs. Marshall, a lay teacher,” he said.
The senator, who graduated from Oak Ridge High School, said that “it’s great to see St. Mary School still succeeding and the church still vibrant.”
Sister Marie Blanchette Cummings, OP, attended the gala. She served as St. Mary principal from 2013-21.
“It would be great to count up how many Sisters have worked at St. Mary over the 75 years,” she said. “It’s a beautiful vocation to help form children in their faith and academically and help them to meet Christ and to form who they’re going to be as adults. This is a celebration of thousands of students and hundreds of teachers and decades of priests. It takes a whole community, and for me St. Mary is a community.”
That community is home to a single parish, convent, and school.
“A lot of my time I was teaching in a school owned by our community or a regional school, so it wasn’t one parish. For me it’s just the connection between the convent, the school, and the parish,” Sister Marie Blanchette said. “It was so lively, and everyone was working together with a common vision. The students would host breakfasts with the parishioners, and it takes all of that to help form people to become adults.
“That’s the goal of education in a school. You’re not just teaching reading, writing, and math. You’re teaching what is the adult that God wants you to be, and how can we help you to become that, to discover your gifts, and to give back to your community, and to live your faith.”
She said the number of vocations to the priesthood and religious life inspired by the Dominicans at St. Mary may be unknown.
“Wow, that’s a hard question to answer,” Sister Marie Blanchette said. “But really the goal is for all the students we teach to grow closer to God. If we’ve done that for every child who’s walked through the building, we’re absolutely thrilled.”
St. Mary pastor Father Ray Powell called the gala “an incredible way to celebrate 75 years.”
“I get to stand here and represent all the priests and religious and teachers and faculty and all the wonderful kids who have come through our school,” he said. “It’s a wonderful chance to celebrate that legacy and to look forward to the next 75 years.
“Priests, deacons, and teachers all helped lay that faith and foundation with education and all the incredible gifts shared with the students, and then they go out in the world and share their gifts with others.”
That process begins early, Father Powell said.
“It starts with the devotion and faith growing right from preschool and first grade and that chance to experience the gifts from God at an early age,” he said. “It’s wonderful. That’s what the whole school is all about and our parish is about. It’s a wonderful gift that we get to share with others.”
The inspiration to vocations can be not just Sisters influencing future priests, but “the same is likewise the opposite way. I know one Sister shared with me that Father Woods greatly inspired her in her vocation. We’re a team, and we work on it together,” Father Powell said.
The two gala auctions plus an appeal for students raised many thousands of dollars for the school. Bishop Mark Beckman donated for the live auction a dinner with him and up to six guests, which received numerous bids before finally going for $2,900.
A Cumberland Mountain boar hunt with St. Mary associate pastor Father Neil Blatchford was claimed with a $1,700 winning bid. Father Woods, pastor of St. Francis of Assisi in Fairfield Glade, donated a round of golf for four at Stonehenge Golf Club in the Glade “and to sweeten the pot, when you’re done, I’ll cook you dinner,” he said.
Additional auction items included a mixology class, a stay at a lake house, and a tour of and lunch at the Dominican motherhouse in Nashville.
Father Blatchford celebrated the vigil Mass at St. Mary Church before the gala and spoke in his homily of the Gospel reading from John 21, where Jesus tells His disciples to cast their nets from the fishing boat.
“How well this aims us in this weekend of our 75th anniversary, 75 years, all because of no other reason than following Jesus Christ and listening to Him, His Word. The closer we follow Him, the more love we find in Him and turn away from the world, the more successful we are, the more glory we bring to Him in our community in Oak Ridge, telling us when and where to cast our nets. If we do not listen to Him, we will catch nothing,” Father Blatchford said.
“We need to cast our nets everywhere the Lord tells us. That is our legacy. That is how we have stood for 75 years in Oak Ridge with a prayerful and generous faithful, listening attentively to our Lord, standing on the rock of Peter, starting with Christ, our cornerstone, that living stone of Jesus Christ,” he noted.
