Catherine Birzle Scholarship awarded to students in diocese

By KATIE LEFEBVRE, Globe staff reporter
May 26, 2005

The Diocese of Sioux City has chosen 30 students to receive the Catherine Birzle Education Scholarship. Students from each of the eight Catholic high schools in the diocese will receive the funds towards their 2005-2006 tuition.

The Catherine Birzle Education Scholarship was set up to provide funds for needy students to attend Catholic high schools in the diocese.

This is the first year the scholarship has been available to students and about 80 students applied. Royce Ranniger, director of operations for the diocese, noted that for the first year that number is pretty good.

The committee that decided on the awards was made up of Ranniger, Ken Hajek, principal at Remsen St. Mary's High School; Tom Ulses, principal at Spalding High School in Granville; Kevin Vickery, superintendent of Catholic schools of the Diocese of Sioux City; and Jamie Mrla, the trustee from Security National Bank.

Award letters were sent to the recipients on May 19. Letters were also sent to the student's school to notify them of the scholarship that was awarded.

"We awarded up to 50 percent of their tuition," said Ranniger. "We awarded $27,000 in scholarships this year. Hopefully that amount will grow next year and more every year as the endowment builds."

Catherine Birzle, who came over from Europe, was a housekeeper for Father Ed Hoffmann as well as other priests and families in the diocese. One of her employers gave her a farm that she in turn gave to the Catholic School Foundation. The farm was sold and the proceeds of the sale went into a trust at Security National Bank. The bank acts as the trustee for the trust.

"It makes Catholic education affordable to more students and more families," said Ranniger. He explained that there are financial circumstances that come up in families that do not allow funds to send students to Catholic schools. This scholarship is a way to help make Catholic education available to more people.

This is a year-by-year scholarship meaning the student would need to reapply for the scholarship each year to continue receiving the funds.

"Even though these 30 got it this year, they can reapply but there is another pool of kids that will be coming in that will be able to apply," said Ranniger.

Recipients were determined by who met the following qualifications:

* Needy students who are attending or will attend a Catholic high school in the Diocese of Sioux City. (Secondary consideration will be given to needy students from the diocese attending a Roman Catholic college or university.)

* Students who have a special financial need.

* Students who show an interest in full-time religious work such as missionaries, priests, nuns and teachers.

"We will be more proactive next year," said Ranniger. "We have all of our criteria down. I think we will be able to award these much earlier next year. We actually extended the deadline this year to April 15. I think next year the deadline will be March sometime. We are going to try to move that up a little bit so people kind of know whether they have financial aid assistance."