FAYETTEVILLE — Bishop Albert Fletcher called it “the answer to a vital need” when St. Thomas Aquinas University Parish opened 50 years ago. Built at a cost of $500,000 and consecrated on April 27, 1960, the church was intended to serve students in a diocese that had no Catholic college.
Past and current parishioners celebrated the church’s golden anniversary on April 27 with a Mass and a feast, highlighted by their shared memories of college antics, sacramental rites and even a few romances.
Andy Lucas, Clyde Chaney and Pat Jansen shared a house in the late 1950s on the corner of Leverett Avenue and Douglas Street, the lot on which the church now stands. In all, there were five roommates, all of them Korean War veterans attending the University of Arkansas on the GI bill. All were active in the Newman Society, which pre-dated the church construction, and whenever the priest, Father John C. O’Dwyer, needed physical labor, he called on the vets.
In fact, the priest called so often, the men dubbed their house the “Newman Annex” and often answered the phone with that name, Lucas said.
Chaney recalled the group traveled to a Newman Society meeting in Boulder, Colo. Before departing Fayetteville, they each bought white jackets adorned with the letter “A” as well as the beanies commonly worn by freshmen in those days.
“No one had even heard of the University of Arkansas,” Chaney said. But by the time the conference ended, they were all “calling the Hawgs,” thanks to the boisterous roommates.
Lucas ended up marrying a Fayetteville girl and he and his wife, Shirley, have been active in the parish ever since. Chaney lives in Fort Smith where he’s been actively involved in several businesses and Jansen lives in Pocahontas.
Albert Baltz shared what he called “a St. Thomas love story.” He was a shy freshman in 1963 who didn’t know many people but when the church held a boxed supper fundraiser, he was happy to bid on meals prepared by the girls of the parish.
After losing several bids, Baltz finally won a round of bidding — and thus met the woman who would become his wife four years later. His bride of 42 years, Jeanie, quipped, “He paid 50 cents for a meal I bought for $2.”
“I got a bargain ever since,” Albert Baltz said, smiling broadly.
T.C. and Angela Long, formerly of Fayetteville and currently living in Van Buren, met at St. Thomas in 1992 but disagree on exactly where they met. T.C., a former campus minister at the church, said the pair met at a church dinner; Angela remembers T.C. from another parish event.
In any case, they married in the church in 1997, and three of their four children were baptized there.
Alicia Minden, a 1974 UA graduate and a university staffer, recalled hearing about her older sister, Anna, who helped the new parish get off the ground. Anna wrote stories for the church newsletter and eventually worked as a newspaper reporter. Anna died on Palm Sunday this year, so her sister was especially thrilled to find pictures of her and people from her wedding party among the church mementos on display.
Caroline DeBriyn came to the parish in 1970 as a new bride (her husband is former UA Razorbacks baseball coach Norm DeBriyn) and as a recent convert to Catholicism.
Father Joe Pallo, pastor in the 1970s, demanded choir members come 15 or 20 minutes early to practice, DeBriyn said, and then, he graded their performance. He had no problems decreeing, “That was a B-minus” and then expecting the group to show up early the following week.
Mass celebrants included Father Joe Marconi, current pastor for St. Thomas, and Father Andy Smith of Jacksonville, who was pastor until 2009.