Rev. James D. Conley, D.D., S.T.L. | Diocese of Lincoln website

The Catholic schools in the Diocese of Lincoln have maintained a strong presence in Nebraska communities, with many families sending multiple generations through their classrooms. At Aquinas Catholic Schools in David City, nearly 56 percent of current students across all grade levels have at least one parent who graduated from Aquinas Catholic High School.

This year, more than half of the senior class—16 out of 29 students—will become alumni alongside their parents. The incoming kindergarten class reflects similar trends: out of 26 students, 16 have parents who are also alumni, and five children have both parents as graduates. Seven kindergarteners have parents who were all members of the class of 2007.

Sara Miriovsky, guidance counselor for Aquinas Catholic Middle and High School, is married to Jake Miriovsky from the class of 2007. Their son Colson started kindergarten this year. Sara recalled a reunion where several mothers were pregnant at the same time: “We said, ‘This is going to be so neat, all of these kids coming back,’” she said.

Jake Miriovsky noted that attending smaller Catholic schools was always part of their plan when starting a family. Sara grew up attending Catholic school in Norfolk but had family ties to David City. The couple now has three children enrolled or soon to be enrolled at Aquinas institutions.

“In this community, it’s a very strong, rich tradition of having families come back and send their kids through the system. It’s just this culture that you want to be a part of,” Sara said.

Their children are third-generation Aquinas students; Jake’s father graduated from Aquinas High School in 1974. “It’s pretty amazing that the school has maintained a strong community culture for that long and continues to draw families back,” Jake said. “There’s a lot of hard work, a lot of dedication from all of the staff and community members who work to keep the school going, so that’s pretty incredible to be a part of.”

Ross Janak also returned to David City after college and working elsewhere; his son Liam is now among the new kindergarteners whose parents were classmates in 2007. Janak remembers his own time at school positively: “It’s very rare in today’s world, that you can have such a close bond with an entire class. Everybody talked to everybody, there was never really anybody on the outside,” he said.

Janak hopes his son will share similar experiences: “I’m hoping he gets the same experience that I did,” Janak said, “that he can get to know everybody and they can all grow together and make him a well-rounded person the same way we did.”

He believes these connections highlight how much impact Aquinas has had on its graduates: “To me,” Janak said, “it just reiterates the fact that the school impacted us so much, in a good way, that we all wanted to send our kids back there, and it shows that this system is working, that Catholic school brings about Catholic life, and that we want our families to be raised in the same way.”

Teresa Pokorny is beginning her 36th year teaching English at Aquinas High School. She enjoys staying connected with former students as their children enroll at Aquinas:

Pokorny said, “Monsignor [Adrian] Herbek offered me a job, and I’m very, very happy to be able to say that I’ve been here all these years. I think it’s awesome having that longevity and having taught the students whose kids are now starting at the school.”

She finds value in meeting former students during parent-teacher conferences as they bring their own children into her classroom:

“I just really enjoy the Aquinas family, the longevity of the teachers,” Pokorny said. “There’s many who have been here as long or longer than I have, and now we have some alumni who have come back to teach at Aquinas, so it’s fun to see some of those things come full circle… it’s fun to interact with them as colleagues now rather than just student and teacher.”

Katie Smith starts her first year as principal at Aquinas Elementary after teaching there for eleven years; she too is an alumna from 2007 along with her husband Brandon Smith. Their daughter Leah joined six other classmates’ children from parents who graduated together.

Smith emphasized maintaining positive traditions within both elementary and high school programs:

“Being principal for the first year, we really have a focus on keeping that positive school culture going within Aquinas Elementary and Aquinas Catholic Schools in general,” she said. “I hope the pride of our school gets carried through like it was when we were there. I think that’s why we are all so willing to come back to this community because we’re proud of where we came from and we had success.”

She described David City as supportive regardless of which schools residents attend:

“In our world today I think sometimes we do kind of hop from place to place," Smith said."and it’s kind of nice that we have a lot people coming back to their roots and really focusing on family...I know so many small towns and communities are like that so I love about Nebraska in general.”