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many years of service recognized at css dinner

Story and photo by RAFE MIDDEKE
Messenger staff

“Personifying service.”

“Unselfish, caring and dedicated.”

“Energetic, challenging, positive, faith-filled leadership.”

These were typical “toasts” for the recipients of Catholic Social Services’ Christian Service Awards at CSS’s 19th annual awards and benefit dinner May 1.

The often-stated time frame for the recipients’ service, dedication and leadership in nominees’ letters and responses was more than 30 and 40 years.

Award recipients were: Ruth Lager, St. Francis of Assisi Parish, Aviston; Dennis Dengler, St. Augustine of Canterbury Parish, Belleville; and Mike Kish, principal at Immaculate Conception School, Columbia. Sylvia Henken called her twin sister, Ruth Lager, “the ministering angel of Aviston … a legend in her own time.” Henken referred to her twin as “personifying service,” at the nursing home, as a grief counselor, and a sender of notes and cards, who sees “laughter as a gift from God. It is with pride and love that I say to my twin sister thanks for all you do, and for all you are,” Henken said.

Lager was an elementary school teacher for 34 years, and a long-time volunteer in St. Francis’ religion program. A nominating letter said she is a retired teacher “who simply can’t be replaced”; another defined her as “an icon in our church and community.”

Lager accepted the award “in the name of all the good people of Aviston.”

Dennis Dengler’s friend, Richard Arnold, in calling him “unselfish, caring and dedicated,” ended his toast with Winston Churchill’s words as appropriate for Dengler: “We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give.”
Father Andy Knopik, Dengler’s former pastor, said Dengler is “a man, in the words of St. Paul, one who has the attitude of Christ; in the words of Scripture a cheerful giver.

Nominating letters stressed Dengler’s volunteer leadership at St. Augustine’s for 40 years. Said one nominee: “Dennis has done so much that he will really be missed when he no longer does everything at St. Augustine Parish.”
Dengler, who has survived serious health and life-threatening challenges said if he wondered who was “going to have my eulogy, I guess I’ve just heard it.”

Mike Kish’s pastor and friend, Msgr. Carl Scherrer, in speaking of his “energetic, challenging, positive, faith-filled leadership” suggested that it isn’t his accomplishments that are the “most important credentials” for his recognition. “I have heard Mike tell the students at our school that true character is measured by what we do when no one is looking.” He then listed a number of Kish’s unseen activities, beginning with “one who cleans up the mess when a student gets ill in church or in a bathroom.”

Led by Todd Biske and Karen Lundy, Kish’s family members and fellow parishioners joined in the singing of his favorite psalm: “The Lord is my saving light, O what should I fear.”

Kish, who has been the principal at Immaculate Conception School for 34 years, said it is his faculty and parish staff who should be receiving the CSS recognition. He included in his introductions “friends and fellow mendicants.”

In closing comments and congratulations Bishop Edward K. Braxton said he knows the recipients are deserving of this year’s awards because he read many of the nomination letters. He also encouraged everyone to read Pope Benedict XVI’s upcoming encyclical on social justice.