Led by current and past students along with Bishop Richard Malone and local clergy, Resurrection Parish held a celebratory mass for St. Joseph’s School at their 11:30 mass on Sunday morning.
“It is a special experience and a special day,” says Alumni John Dwyer.
“This school does such a wonderful job, and Principal Karen Green has brought encouragement and excitement in the education here for all these children.”
“Its very heartwarming to hear what this school has meant to people and what it continues to mean to people,” says Karen Green, Principal.
“We want that tradition to carry on for years to come.”
Altar Servers John Dwyer and Robert Darch celebrated the mass wearing their Vestments from the 1940’s. The pair graduated from St. Joseph’s School in 1947 and were both part of St. Joseph’s Drum Corps which was founded in 1931 by Rev. T. Bernard Kelly.
According to Dwyer, the drum corps was founded by Father Kelly during the depression to give St. Joe’s school boys something to do because there was no money for activities.
“It was very fundamental to begin with,” according to Dwyer.
Many drum corps alumni showed up at the event today and the St. Joe’s Brass Ensemble played several songs at the close of mass.
Bishop Malone, who also was a member of St. Mary’s Drum Corps in New England growing up, says the closing songs by the Brass Ensemble was a pleasant surprise.
The St. Joes Drum Corps marched in every street parade and every fireman’s parade in WNY until the 1950’s when it became a field competition corps with the help of Bob Sullivan, a teacher in LeRoy.
“With a cockeyed imagination, he took a drum corps from Batavia, NY and a small parish and brought it to the world stage, it seemed absolutely impossible and yet it was done. They played the best stadiums with often times 100 bugles and the best drum line in the entire world. They wowed crowds in Chicago and Boston and all over the United States, its quite a story, it pays to dream, ” says Dwyer.
Dwyer and Darch both played the drumline during their time at St. Joes.
The school is the only remaining Catholic school in the Genesee, Orleans and Wyoming County area.
St. Joseph’s School will shift from a parish school to a regional school with the Buffalo Diocese this coming school year.
The school serves students from Pre-K to 8th grade.
“I believe catholic education is as important now as it has ever been,” says Bishop Malone.
“Especially with a new culture that has become increasingly secular and almost hostile to Catholicism and hostile to religion in general, our school here is more important than ever. St. Joes can be a shining light in what can sometimes be kind of dark with all the confusion.”
“We have a new responsibility and new urgency to be all that we can be as communities of faith and learning committed to the truth.”