Over 1,000 Names Give St Rose

Project’s Topmost ‘I-Beam’ Literal Significance

By Shannon Hicks

The wind was blowing, the sky was terribly overcast, and the temperatures certainly felt like mid-April, but for the crowd outside St Rose School and behind the parish’s soon-to-be-a-memory parish hall last Friday afternoon, the weather did not draw their attention away from one beam that may be the most important one going into the construction of the church’s new $4.2 million, 17,000-square-foot building and renovation project.

Ground was broken last June, and the construction that begin in the fall has continued steadily since then, even to the point where the framework already allows parishioners (and Church Hill Road passersby) to begin envisioning what the building will look like. A mild winter allowed construction to continue through most of the recent chilly months, so that last week one of the most important traditions of construction was allowed to take place: the placement of the topping beam, which officially completed the framing of the new parish hall addition.

A brief ceremony to watch the beam being lifted into position, welded into place, and then topped with an evergreen, was held early on the afternoon of April 11, the final day St Rose School students were in session before their spring break.

In the weeks leading up to the brief ceremony on Friday, Father Bob Weiss has invited his parishioners to sign their names on the beam, which had been painted white.

“The whole parish was invited to sign this,” Father Bob said on Friday. “We did it after Masses, and there are well over 1,000 signatures there.”

Parishioners were also invited to watch the ceremony on Friday, and few dozen of them joined the 400-plus students of the parochial school to watch the beam go into its position of honor. Architect Brooks Fisher joined Father Bob, members of his staff, and members of the church’s building committee for the rite.

“The construction workers came to us to ask if they could do this,” Father Bob said in addressing those who gathered. “This ceremony is about giving back to the earth. The evergreen tree is a sign of a new beginning, which is what this building is.”

Father Bob offered two brief prayers, including one where he thanked God for “another step toward finishing our new building, the good weather, the good winter, and the safety of the workers.” Then the beam — which already had a Vatican flag attached on one side and an American flag on the opposite side — and its multitudes of dreams and signatures was lifted by a crane toward the northern side of the building. Meanwhile steelworker Mykolu Tsolka was lifted in a cherry picker into position, which allowed him to weld the beam into place.

Cheering began then, and continued to grow in volume as Mr Tsolka then picked up an evergreen from the bucket he was standing in and placed the tree into a pipe that had also been welded into place atop the beam.

“Just think,” Father Bob said in addressing the St Rose School student body, “when you come back from vacation, the electricity will be in and then the roof will go on.

“You’ll never see that beam again, but your name is going to be up there for a lot of years, a lot of years. Your children and grandchildren may even come back and attend school in the same building that is being built right in front of you.”

Should the project continue to stay on schedule, the building will be ready for use in September.