TRUE MAROON

Each year Dowling Catholic proudly honors deserving alumni of St. Joseph Academy and DCHS with the Distinguished Alumni and Distinguished Young Alumni Awards. We are honored to recognize Marthaellen Florence ‘75, Sandra Rodemyer, BVM ‘59 and Meghan E. O’Neill ‘02 as our 2021 award recipients.

Marthaellen Florence retired in 2019 from an

award-winning career in public broadcasting (PBS) spanning more than 40 years. Ms. Florence is a graduate of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and holds a bachelor’s

degree in broadcast journalism.

She currently serves as a faculty member with the Center for Leadership Development (CLD), an agency under the federal government’s Office of Personnel Management which offers education programs across the U.S. and the world. She also serves as faculty chair for the agency’s diversity, equity and inclusion initiative working with the Office of Personnel Management and the U.S. White House on aligning the recent presidential executive orders on racial equity.

Ms. Florence has a strong leadership background. She began honing her leadership skills in the mid-90s as a life skills coach for the University of Nebraska athletic department. She also created and implemented a city-wide life skills resiliency program for at-risk/incarcerated youth and teen mothers for a consortium of community centers which is still in use. She is also a

trained mediator and life coach.

For more than 30 years she has served as a consultant for LeaderShape, Inc., cofacilitating workshops for university faculty members and future leaders selected

through college honors programs.

She strongly believes in servant leadership and takes great pride in her community involvement. She feels it is important to give back and has served in numerous leadership roles on local, regional and national boards.

She has been recognized with many awards, including the Lincoln Mayor’s Heart of the Arts and NAACP Leola Bullock Community Service awards. She was a YWCA Woman of the Year-

Tribute to Women honoree, named one of Leadership Lincoln’s Community Co-Creators and inducted into the University of Nebraska Multicultural Hall of Fame. She is extremely honored and humbled to be recognized with the Distinguished Alumni Award. Sister Sandra Rodemyer was born in La Crosse, Wisconsin, but raised in Des Moines, Iowa. She attended St. Augustin and St. Joseph Academy. Sr. Sandra went on to Clarke College in Dubuque for two years and then entered the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary (the BVMs) in 1961. From Mount Carmel she was sent to Mundelein

College in Chicago to finish her degree. She taught at St. Albert High School in Council Bluffs, Regina High School in Iowa City where she was also chair of the Social Studies

Department, and Dowling for 18 years.

In 1995 following her retirement from teaching she became the Food Pantry Director for the Des Moines Area Religious Council (DMARC) Emergency Food Pantry. She was responsible for ordering food for the 11 pantry sites and overseeing 50 volunteers. She retired from the Food Pantry in 2007.

Sr. Sandra served on two retreat programs. At Dowling she participated in the Teens Encounter Christ (TEC) program for seniors. In 1992 she joined the Residents Encounter Christ (REC) prison retreat program at the women’s prison in Mitchellville. She worked on 32 retreats and volunteered in the prison’s Religious Library. She retired from prison ministry in 2018 after volunteering for 23 years. Sr. Sandra served on the Catholic Peace

Ministry board and the Holy Trinity Peace and Justice Committee. She served on the

Holy Trinity Stephen Minister team where she served as a trainer for new Stephen Ministers. She was a member of the Des Moines Sisters’

Council for over 40 years, often serving in leadership positions. She currently serves on the BVM Ministry Grant Committee which awards grants to organizations serving the needs of women and children.

In 2007 Sr. Sandra received the Governor’s

Dr. Meghan O’Neill lettered in basketball, track, cross country and softball at Dowling and was active in Special Olympics. She was class valedictorian and went on to attend the

University of Notre Dame where she doublemajored in science pre-professional studies and psychology. She graduated Magna Cum Laude and was inducted into the Phi Beta

Kappa Academic Honor Society, the Alpha Epsilon Delta Pre-Medical Honor Society, and was awarded the Patrick J. Niland, MD Award, recognizing excellence in academics, service and integrity.

She attended the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore and was inducted into

the Alpha Omega Alpha Honors Medical Society, graduating in the top 10th percentile of her class. She completed a three-year pediatric residency at Northwestern McGaw - Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago before returning to Baltimore to complete a residency-fellowship program in Neurodevelopmental Disabilities at Johns Hopkins and the Kennedy Krieger Institute.

Dr. O’Neill currently resides in Chicago with her husband, Nick Guzmán, and their three children. She works as an attending physician in Developmental-Behavioral Pediatrics and Child Neurology at Lurie Children’s Hospital. She is an assistant professor of pediatrics at the Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine and is certified in General Pediatrics, Neurology with Special Qualification in Child Neurology, and Neurodevelopmental Disabilities.

Dr. O’Neill established the Lurie Children’s

Down Syndrome clinic which has been responsible for the care of hundreds of children. She also specializes in the care of children with autism, developmental delays, intellectual disability, ADHD, learning disabilities, cerebral palsy and complex neurogenetic syndromes. She leads the Northwestern developmental pediatrics clinical rotation and has been involved in

educating hundreds of fellows, residents and medical students. She is involved in

numerous Down syndrome-related research projects and national workgroups, has authored several articles and medical

textbook chapters, and has given talks nationwide. She was selected to the

American Academy of Neurology Palatucci Advocacy Leadership Forum given her interest in disability-related advocacy issues.

To view a complete list of Distinguished Alumni Award recipients, please visit: www.dowlingcatholic.org/distinguished-alumni

FATHER HESS CELEBRATES 50 YEARS OF PRIESTHOOD

Congratulations to Father Michael

Hess who

celebrated the

50th anniversary of his priestly ordination on

May 29, 2021.

Father Hess graduated from Dowling High School in 1963. He went on to attend Immaculate Conception Seminary in Conception, Missouri; Loras College in Dubuque; the Aquinas Institute of Theology in Dubuque; Notre Dame Seminary in New Orleans; and Catholic University in Washington, D.C. Dingman and served at St. Michael Parish in Harlan, Iowa, and then at St. Ambrose in Des Moines. He joined the Dowling faculty when the new school opened in 1972 after it merged with St. Joseph Academy. He served as president of Dowling from 1976 to 2000.

His many significant contributions include the establishment of Dowling’s Foundation Board in 1978. Different from the Board

of Education, the Foundation Board was created to focus on fundraising and endowment management to support the school’s mission, a function which continues to be essential to this day. to Dowling Catholic with the Distinguished Alumni Award as well as the CIVITAS Award, the highest honor bestowed by the school. In addition, the south wing of DCHS is named the Father Michael N. Hess Convocation

Center in recognition of his longstanding support.

Following his tenure at Dowling, Father Hess served for 15 years as pastor of Sacred Heart Catholic Church in West

Des Moines before his retirement in

2015. He continues to serve as chaplain for the West Des Moines Police, Fire and EMS departments and on the weekends at Our Lady’s Immaculate Heart Parish in Ankeny.