Fall 2005 - St. Charles Preparatory School

y learning techniques a player has an
advantage and can compete with bigger
players.
“Football to Joe,” Vargo continued, “was
a wonderful way for groups of people to get
together for a common cause and to form
friendships. It was a means for camaraderie.
It gets into your blood.”
Among high school coaches that
Bossetti assisted, Vargo noted, were Ray
Bellisari, an Aquinas graduate, at Whetstone,
Pat Sergio, a Wehrle grad, at
Centennial, and Tony Pusateri, at DeSales,
of which he was a graduate.
Lou Fabro
Near miss in 1944
St. Charles never had an unbeaten football
season, but came close seven times
when it lost only one game. One of those
near-miss unbeaten seasons was in1944,
which Joe Bossetti recalled with considerable
emotion five years ago in an interview
for a history feature about St.
Charles football.
He noted that St Charles went into its
final game against Columbus Academy in
’44 with a perfect 7-0 record and heavily
favored over the Vikings, who that year
had a so-so team. But on game day, the
skies opened up and it poured all day. The
playing field at game time was oozing with
mud.
Despite pleas from players and
coaches to buy mud cleats, a cost-conscious
decision was made not to make a
purchase. As expected, neither team could
mount an offense. But an Academy player
in the second quarter grabbed a St.
Charles punt and, eluding St. Charles
defenders stuck in the mud, got loose for a
touchdown. It was the game’s only score.
Academy won 6-0.
“On a dry field,” Bossetti exclaimed
five years ago with maybe a touch of
exaggeration, “we would have beaten
them 50-0.”
Rieser was “brother’s
keeper
eeper” ” to
many
George Rieser, Class
of ’46, was a truly a
“man for God and
others” during a
lifetime in which he
helped countless
numbers of people.
He lived by a motto
that he repeated
often: Always help
George Rieser ’46
others because “you
never know who you
might help in this life.” In July he passed
away unexpectedly and much too early.
His obituary was a tribute to a man
who touched countless lives. He was the
youngest of nine children and attended the
Cathedral Grade School before coming to
St. Charles. Rieser served in the U.S.
Army, attended The Ohio State University,
and worked for the Central Ohio Paper
Company for many years before joining the
Central Ohio Management Association and
retiring in 1995.
For most of his adult life he was active
in Charity Newsies, only too happy to give
back to the organization that helped
provide him clothing when he was a boy.
He served as the organization’s drive
chairman from 1987-1989.
Reiser loved music and had a rich tenor
voice. He was a member of the Columbus
Maennechor for 30 years. He served as its
president in 1998 and oversaw the gala
celebration of the club’s 150 th anniversary
and the National Saengerfest when it came
to Columbus.
He was an active member of the St.
Charles Alumni Association board, frequently
attended First Friday Mass at the
school, and loved participating in the
annual Platinum Reunion for the school’s
earliest graduates.
Classmate, close friend, and Alumni
Association board member, Homer V.
Beard remembers Reiser fondly, and that
he was a wonderful husband who adored
his late wife, Peg, their five daughters and
many grandchildren.
Rieser was also very proud of his
association with St. Charles and many
other aspects of his life: attending the
former Cathedral Grade School and
Bishop James J. Hartley ‘s “Latin School
downtown; serving Mass for Bishop
Hartley at St. Joseph Cathedral; earning a
scholarship to attend St. Charles and
getting to ‘skip’ his freshman year there;
his presidency of Charity Newsies and
Maennerchor; his long presidency of the
Central Ohio Management Association;
and being a member of the St Charles
Alumni board.
The St. Charles and entire Columbus
community have lost a great friend and
supporter.
Latin & Greek in high
school!? ’41 grad recalled
shock of others
Charles R. Gambs, Class of ’41, described
his years at St. Charles as “a great educational
opportunity,” when interviewed for
St. Charles Borromeo Preparatory School;
The First 75 Years of Excellence, the
school history book published in 2000.
Gambs, a former special agent for the
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), a
retired assistant vice president at The
Ohio State University where he had
earned his law degree, and a retired army
colonel, died Oct. 26, 2005, at the age of 81
due to complications from a fall.
“You told someone outside that you
took four years of Latin and two years of
Greek, they could hardly believe it,”
Gambs said with a note of pride in his
interview. All St. Charles students were
required to take Latin and Greek until
1945 when the Greek requirement was
replaced by two years of a modern language
– French or Spanish.
“The older you get,” Gambs said in
recalling his high school years, “the more
you appreciate how important that St.
Charles training is.”
Msgr. . Hanley described as
being good servant
“The Gospel tells us
all to be servants.
The measurement
of a good servant is
the fulfillment of
duty. Today, we
mourn the loss of a
good servant –
James Patrick
Hanley.”
With those words,
Father William
Msgr. James P. Hanley ’43 Arnold began his
eulogy of Msgr.
Hanley whose funeral Mass was celebrated
at Christ the King Church in Columbus by
Bishop Frederick F. Campbell assisted by
retired Bishop James A. Griffin. The
funeral drew a near capacity crowd of
mourners, including a very large number
of diocesan priests.
Msgr. Hanley died Oct. 21. He was 79.
A native of Louisville, Kentucky, he
was a 1943 graduate of St. Charles Preparatory
School and earned a B.A. degree
from St. Charles College-Seminary in 1947.
He was ordained a priest May 26, 1951, at
St. Joseph Cathedral. He was appointed a
monsignor in 1992 and retired three years
later but continued his priestly ministry.
In his very lively eulogy, Father
Arnold, pastor of St. Joseph Parish in
Dover, Ohio, described Msg. Hanley as “a
The Distinctive Leader in Catholic Education
47