Gehlen Catholic opens homecoming week with special mass

Students, staff, parents and alumni at Gehlen Catholic Schools will start their 2008 homecoming activities with a special Homecoming Mass at 8:45 a.m. Monday, Sept. 29, at St. Joseph Church in Le Mars.

Presiding at the mass will be two priests, both 1953 graduates of the last class from St. Joseph School, Father Gene Sitzmann and and Rick Sitzmann.

Father Gene Sitzmann has served at Cherokee and Maryhill parishes and is now retired. Father Rick Sitzmann is the priest at Mercy Medical Center-Sioux City.

At the conclusion of the Mass, the two men, representing the class of 1953, will present the first brick for the memorial that will commemorate St. Joseph School.

The school building was torn down earlier this summer in preparation for a new church structure on the site.

The St. Joseph Memorial will feature 350 engraved bricks from St. Joseph and Gehlen Catholic family, the cornerstone, two benches in honor of the priests and sisters who served both schools, and the headstone that adorned the top of the old school which read "St. Joseph School."

Sports activities on Monday include a cross country meet at Sioux City West at 4:30 p.m. and a junior varsity football game with Woodbury Central at 6 p.m. in Le Mars.

A complete schedule, and homecoming royalty, will be published in Monday's Daily Sentinel.