The United Catholic Schools Foundation is a million dollars healthier today thanks to Father Edward Kasal, the "cowboy priest.

Friday, September 01, 2000

The United Catholic Schools Foundation is a million dollars healthier today thanks to Father Edward Kasal, the "cowboy priest."

Interest from the million-dollar endowment gift will be used to provide yearly assistance to all three Catholic schools in Austin: Queen of Angels, St. Augustine and Pacelli High. It will be up to the school boards to determine how to use the funds, according to foundation president Jim Anderson.

"We’re most grateful to the foundation and to the Plunketts, who recommended us as a recipient of the trust money," said Father Virgil Duellman, Pacelli’s director and parish priest at Queen of Angels. "We will use the interest wisely for the betterment of the schools and our students."

The funds are a part of the final distribution of the assets of the Father Kasal Charitable Foundation, which originally was established as a trust for furthering the work of Catholic Charities and Catholic Education.

In the original trust agreement, all principle and interest of the trust were to be used up within 30 years. When that period expired, a new board of directors was appointed to prepare a final distribution of the more than $3 million in assets. That plan was approved by the district court in June, with $1 million coming to Austin.

Interest from $600,000 of that money will go to all three schools; interest from $400,000 will go only to Pacelli, which has the lowest enrollment of the three schools.

Does the gift mean the end of rumors about Pacelli closing?

"This will help, but it’s certainly not going to solve all the financial problems at the school," Anderson said.

"Yes," new Pacelli Dean of Students Norm Blaser said, noting that enrollment at the high school was up 6 percent this year. "We’re here to stay."

By setting it up as an endowment, rather than spending the gift, the USC Foundation ensures that the money will continue to benefit the schools far into the future. Although the amount of interest gained will vary with the stock market, Anderson said the United Catholic Schools Foundation are aiming at 8 percent, which work out at $80,000 a year from the new endowment.

The endowment basically doubles the assets of the Foundation, which was originally established more than a decade ago to set up an endowment to help fund the schools. Since then, the assets of the UCS Foundation have hovered around the million-dollar mark; now they will hover around $2 million.

Other recipients of the Kasal funds were the Diocese of Winona Charitable Foundation and St. Joseph’s Indian School Inc. of Chamberlain, S.D.

Kasal (1875-1965), a native of Czechoslovakia who was ordained in 1899, came to the Winona Diocese in 1910 and served as a diocesan priest until his death. In his early years, he traveled on horseback to serve the rural parishes of North Dakota and western Minnesota.