Gibault Catholic High School — with more than 3,000 graduates since first opening its doors — continues a year-long celebration of its 50th anniversary in 2017.

An anniversary open house takes place this Saturday from 4 to 10 p.m. at the school for alumni, former faculty and staff, parents and friends. The open house will give alumni the opportunity to visit campus and reminisce with classmates.

For a more organized method of socializing with their class, each decade — 1950s and 60s era graduates will meet in the same place — will be separated into different areas of the school. Everyone is invited to the gym for music and dancing at 8 p.m.

There will also be a cash bar and souvenirs for sale. Contact sev@gibaulthawks.com or visit GibaultHawks.com for more information.

In recognition of Gibault’s milestone, the Republic-Times interviewed several alumni to see where they are now and find out how attending the private school has helped them succeed in their careers.

A few of these graduates pursued careers that took them outside of Monroe County, while others found their way back home. But even the ones who send Christmas cards to their families from other states,
or even other countries, still hold strong roots in the area.

“We are proud of the remarkable achievements of our alumni and celebrate the incredible impact each has had on the world,” Gibault principal Russ Hart said. “We don’t accept the status quo at Gibault. We embrace change. It is in our fabric.”

Kathy McAuliffe
Dr. Kathy McAuliffe of McAuliffe Chiropractic in Columbia has owned her practice in the same office since 1981. She is the third generation of chiropractors in her family and her daughter, Dr. Kara Lamack, is the fourth generation.

“It’s kind of unusual,” she told the Republic-Times in regard to their family tradition of working in chiropractic care.

McAuliffe, 60, graduated from Gibault in 1975 and her daughters Kara, 28, and Katie Lamack, 22, followed in her footsteps. McAuliffe was inspired by her dad and grandpa to choose her profession, saying there were not as many female doctors when she graduated from high school.

“Gibault taught you to believe in yourself and to dream big,” she said.

Mark Herrmann
Mark Herrmann, 47, is a plasma physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California.

Herrmann said he and his research team hope to create a renewable energy source using lasers to create temperatures reaching a few million degrees or more for the purpose of fusing matter.

After 25 years of research, he said the lab has seen that first step of a little bit of heating needed but now needs that to happen on a more robust scale.

“Basically, you wouldn’t have concerns about getting oil from overseas,” he said of the potential benefits of the research.

Herrmann graduated from Gibault in 1987. His brother, Matt Herrmann, and Matt’s wife, Cyra, still reside in the county.

“Gibault was a fabulous place. The teachers really expanded my horizons about the world, and introduced me to ideas about science,” Mark said.

Brian Schoellhorn
Lt. Col. Brian Schoellhorn, 45, served in the U.S. Army from 1990 to 1993 before serving in the National Guard until 1998 and then returning to the Army.

He is stationed at Fort Wainwright in Fairbanks, Alaska, as commander of the 1st Battalion, 24th Infantry Regiment, which is a stryker infantry unit comprised of five companies with more than
600 soldiers.

Schoellhorn said his inspiration for joining the military dated back to an early age.

“I have always been interested in the military and history, which naturally led me to consider enlisting. I also had a deep sense that I needed to serve and test myself,” he explained.

His parents, Mary Sue and Ernst Schoellhorn, remain in Monroe County. He graduated from Gibault in 1990.

“I think Gibault provided a solid foundation for my moral and intellectual development that has served me well across the years and in different, often difficult, situations,” Schoellhorn said.

Lynetta Frasure Newton
Lynetta Frasure Newton, 44, went on to work in aerospace engineering at Lockheed Martin in California. There, Newton helped calculate proper storage and deployment for solar panels that would
go on the International Space Station.

She also worked in systems engineering during a NASA internship.

At that time, she helped determine the feasibility of carrying a crew escape pod on a mission shuttle like the Challenger and whether it would have saved those astronauts.

“It’s really limiting to what they could bring on their mission and only provides a small increase in additional safety,” she told the Republic-Times.

She resides in Columbia with her husband, Doug, and children Noah, 12, and Kyra, 10. Lynetta said she plans to send both kids to Gibault.

“I still had time through modular scheduling to take band, keyboarding, sewing. In a traditional school, I wouldn’t have had time to take all of those courses outside of the traditional college prep curriculum,” she said.

Thomas Funfsinn
Thomas Funfsinn, 27, is in his second year as an oral English instructor for first and second-year college students at Puyang Vocational and Technical College in Puyang, China.

Funfsinn focuses on the conversational aspects of using English, helping transition students into everyday use of the language.

The 2008 Gibault grad said the ability to live abroad is the reason he decided to take the job in China.

His parents, Mark and Deborah Funfsinn, live in the county.

“For my current job, I can draw a direct connection back to Gibault,” Funfsinn said. “I was part of the 2008 Bolivia mission trip for my senior project … We weren’t visiting as tourists, instead we were involved in their community. Since then, I’ve always wanted to expand my international experiences in an immersive way.”