Steven Gregory Straessle

BY HEATHER WECSLER
ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE

Throughout high school and college, Steve Straessle planned to become a lawyer. But when he graduated from the University of Arkansas in 1992, he decided he wasn't ready to go to law school quite yet.
   So he called a man he had long regarded as a great mentor, his old principal and rector at Little Rock's Catholic High School for Boys, Monsignor George Tribou.
   "I called him about 8 o'clock one night, and I said, 'Father, this is Steve Straessle.' He said, 'Are you in jail?'" Straessle recalls with a chuckle. "I guess when he'd get calls at night, he'd just assume a graduate was in jail."
   Yet Straessle just wanted some career advice. He told Tribou that he was thinking about becoming a teacher, but he only wanted to teach for one year before heading to law school. Tribou asked what his degree was in.
   "I said history," Straessle recounts. "Then there was a long pause. He said, 'I had a history teacher ask for a one-year sabbatical today.'"
   Tribou invited Straessle in for an interview, and he subsequently got the job.
   Thirteen years later, Straessle, 35, still has the teaching bug. He's still at Catholic High. And just this past week, the school formally announced that Straessle would follow in Tribou's footsteps as the next principal of the four-year college preparatory school that his mentor built into a highly respected Little Rock institution.
   "It's not hard to see a natural leader, and Steve certainly is one," says the school's current principal, Mike Rockers. The former school superintendent for the Catholic Diocese of Little Rock, Rockers has led the school since Tribou's death in February 2001. "Steve has a great love of Catholic High, and the boys and staff respect him. He and Father Tribou are different people, but he has a way with boys just like Father Tribou had."
   Rockers is leaving Little Rock for a position as principal of St. Francis Elementary School in Hilton Head, S.C.
   "I feel I'm the transition between two excellent principals—Father Tribou and Steve Straessle," Rockers says. "I feel like it's almost providential."
   The announcement of Straessle's promotion comes during a banner year for the school, which is celebrating its 75th anniversary. As vice principal and executive director of the Catholic High School Foundation, Straessle has worked closely with alumni in planning a slate of activities to mark the anniversary. These events have included a special student body Mass to open the school year, an alumni dinner in October with former Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating as keynote speaker and a 5K run on March 19.
   The celebration culminates in a community banquet for students, parents, alumni and friends of the school planned for Saturday at the Statehouse Convention Center. The banquet sold out its 1,500 tickets in January.
   Straessle says he was delighted to help organize the anniversary festivities.
   "This school has such a rich history and so many great, supportive alumni," Straessle says. "At this moment, we all can enjoy looking back and at the same time look forward."
   An avowed history buff, Straessle knows his alma mater's traditions intimately. The son of a Catholic High graduate, he also is proud of the role the school has played in his family history. "My grandfather walked through these halls," Straessle says of the school's building at 6300 Father Tribou Drive off University Avenue. "And while I'm walking through the school, I often can't help but think of my grandfather sweeping through the halls."

LESSONS IN HUMILITY

Tribou hired Straessle's late grandfather, Jack Straessle, to be a custodian at the school in 1961 after it moved from its old location at Roosevelt and State streets. He worked for the school after his son Jerry, Steve's father, had graduated from Catholic High in 1960 and had gone on to attend the University of Dallas on scholarship.
   "I learned a couple of things from my grandfather — the importance of humility and hard work," Straessle says.
   Although he sheepishly admits that he still struggles with humility, the future school principal says hard work is now second nature to him — thanks not only to the example set by his grandfather but also to the lessons he learned from his parents and Catholic High.
   Straessle is the second-oldest of Jerry and Donna Straessle's five children. The couple, who live in Little Rock, own a management consulting firm that works with banks, retailers and finance companies in promoting their credit cards.
   With his family, Straessle says, Mass attendance was never optional. And his parents say they never debated where they would send their four oldest children. Their youngest child and only daughter wanted to go to Catholic High School too, her parents said, but she had to carry on her family's tradition of Catholic education in her own way by attending Mount St. Mary Academy.
   Jerry Straessle says he deeply values the experience of attending an all-boys' school.
   "It's a different atmosphere when you're not trying to impress the opposite sex," he said. "You're not as distracted, so you can get down to the business of learning."
   Donna Straessle was similarly impressed by the school's education and discipline. "They'd have to wear a tie every day and keep a modest haircut," she said. "But each of my sons all came to look forward to wearing a tie every day. It gave them a real sense of who they were, that they were part of Catholic High."
   Steve Straessle says Catholic High gave him a good foundation. Indeed, his parents vividly remember him thanking them for enrolling him in the school soon after he graduated in 1988.
   "It laid the groundwork perfectly for the next stone of education to be laid in college," he says. "It was also about Christian formation, and at Catholic High in particular, we still hammer home the idea that we want you to be successful. But success to us means that you are a good husband, a good father and a good citizen, as well as a good member of your profession."
   As strong as Catholic High is in instilling academics and discipline, he says, the school also helps boys forge equally strong lifelong friendships.
   "My classmates were and still are my best friends," Straessle says. "They were in my wedding. They are my closest confidants. They are the people who will carry me to my grave."
   One of those friends is Sean Dunbar, who sells advertising for Arkansas Business Publishing Group and attended March 19's 5K run at Catholic High with his son, Lance.
   Straessle was already a junior when Dunbar entered Catholic High, but Dunbar said Straessle always looked out for the younger students.
   "He knew how important it was that boys not go to the football games with their moms," Dunbar said. While another boy would charge Dunbar and other freshmen $5 to ride in the trunk of his car, Straessle offered his rides for free.
   Straessle says he was more than happy to show off his set of wheels, his "main claim to fame" in high school. He drove a silver 1981 Oldsmobile Custom Cruiser Station Wagon, the last of the full-size station wagons. It even had its own eight-track player, Straessle proudly says. The car also had its own nickname, "the Beast."
   As admiring as Dunbar was of Straessle's car, he says Straessle's track record as a stand-up guy has sustained their friendship through college, where they were fraternity brothers in Sigma Phi Epsilon, and into adulthood.
   "If my son grows up to be half the man Steve is, I'll be very pleased," Dunbar said.
   Another former classmate and fraternity brother, David Shields calls Straessle "the voice of reason" who kept his buddies out of trouble.
   "He treated you like a man and expected you to act like a man," says Shields, an Allstate Insurance agent in Little Rock. "Steve lived his life like he was running for president."
   Like many other Catholic High graduates, Straessle says he was reluctant to leave the campus he loved.
   "But did I think I was going to be back?" he says. "No, not at the time."

MARRYING UP

In fact, Straessle first headed to New Orleans, where he spent his freshman year at Tulane University. But because his siblings needed to go to college too, Straessle said, he transferred the following year to the less expensive University of Arkansas.
   At Tulane and the UA, Straessle said, he found he could hold his own academically with students from across the country. Still, college life did require some adjustments.
   "Obviously, walking into a classroom where there were girls was an eye-opening experience—something I hadn't done in four years," he says.
   But Straessle didn't meet his wife, Ann, until after he had graduated from college and had started teaching at Catholic High. The two met at a wedding, when Straessle spotted his future bride while talking to a friend.
   "Now, I am not a suave person," Straessle says. "This is the one time in my life when I was. I told my friend, 'Excuse me, I'm going to get myself introduced to that girl.' His response was 'Yeah, right.'"
   But the two immediately clicked. As Straessle puts it: "We started talking and kept talking." Four months later they were engaged, and four months after that, they were married.
   The couple celebrated their 10th wedding anniversary last summer. Straessle said the two wed in summer, "because I knew Father Tribou wouldn't give me any time off for a honeymoon."
   Ann Straessle, who worked as a special education teacher at the time, says the fact Steve was also a teacher was one of the first things that attracted her.
   "I knew that I would marry him from the day we met," she said. "I can't even profess what a good father and husband he is. I often tell people I married up."
   Her husband says he feels the same way.
   As devoted as he is to Catholic High, her husband always puts his family first, Ann Straessle says. Today, the two have four children: Jacob, 9; Abigail, 7; Sam, 4; and Jed (short for James Edward), 9 months old. All but Jed now attend Our Lady of the Holy Souls Catholic School.
   Ann Straessle attended Central High School, an experience she treasured, and she says she initially envisioned her children attending public school as she did.
   But after seeing Catholic High up close and all it has done for her husband and his friends, she says she's now excited to see her three sons follow in their dad's footsteps.
   "I think there's a certain magic there," she said. "I've met 80-year-olds who still talk happily about their experiences at Catholic High."
   She's already heard from many of her husband's students how much they appreciate what he's done for them. "We get phone calls all the time from graduates who tell Steve 'you're the reason I'm doing' this or that," she says.

IN THE CLASSROOM

For the last two years, Steve Straessle has been the high school's vice principal and dean of discipline, as well as overseeing the school's alumni relations.
   Straessle says such multitasking is not unusual at Catholic schools, which have a reputation for being very frugal. He realized this when he completed his first year at Catholic High.
   Tribou called him into his office and asked him if he wanted to continue teaching. Straessle answered yes. "Good," Straessle said the monsignor told him. "I need you to also oversee the yearbook next year."
   In addition to his administrative obligations, Straessle remains committed to the classroom and interacting with each of the school's roughly 600 students. This school year, he teaches three periods: a civics class for sophomores, and an American government class and a politics class for seniors.
   And, his students say, he's a teacher you want to have.
   "Mr. Straessle is one of my favorite people," says Steve Aday, a junior at the UA, who recently dropped by Catholic High to see his old teacher. Aday says each year Straessle devotes a class period to telling students how they can prepare for college, a lesson that Aday says has helped countless students.
   Matt Casey, a senior in Straessle's American government class, also marvels at his instruction. "He really knows his stuff," says Casey, 18. [The school year included] "an election year, and each day he devoted 10 minutes to discussions of the election. He also let us express ourselves."
   As dean of discipline, Straessle does deal with students in less-than-ideal circumstances. But even then, his fellow teachers say Straessle tries to keep a sense of humor.
   "When I was in school, corporal punishment was still alive and well," Straessle recalls. "But when I began teaching, Father Tribou explained that corporal punishment was no longer utilized. There were other things that teachers could do that would be a nuisance to the student or make a point clear without physically touching him."
   Among those things is to make students who violate the dress code don heavy coats—a particularly memorable deterrent on warm days, since the school remains largely without air conditioning.

ALWAYS A TEACHER

Straessle says he has never regretted his change in career paths from law to teaching. Two years into teaching, he did start taking law classes at the University of Arkansas in Little Rock, but he said the work never felt right. After about seven years at Catholic High School, he took a job traveling for an antiques brokerage firm—the first time since he'd met his wife that he couldn't see her every day.
   Again he returned to Catholic High.
   "Teaching is addictive," he says. "It is the one job where you are immortal, in that your students will remember you for the rest of their lives, and now whether they remember you for good or bad is solely up to what you do in a 50-minute period every day of the week for their educational career."
   He imagines he'll retire at about age 75 as an instructor at Catholic High. In the meantime, he says he is honored to carry on the traditions that Tribou started as best he can.
   "He was a child of the '40s. He was raised in the era of Tommy Dorsey and Benny Goodman and Humphrey Bogart," Straessle says. "I was raised in the '80s in the era of Van Halen and Charlie Sheen. Those are big differences, but there are some things that are timeless such as the adherence to the belief that rigorous academics and high expectations are the keys to success, the belief that self-discipline and work ethic are virtues and the idea that all ambition should be tempered by a doctrine of faith—and the absolute fact that a sense of humor is as important as an arm or a leg. This is our school. In succinct terms, this is what we do."

SELF PORTRAIT
Steve Straessle

DATE AND PLACE OF BIRTH
Dec. 20, 1969, Little Rock.

IN HIGH SCHOOL, PEOPLE EXPECTED ME TO BECOME
A lawyer.
   

MY FAVORITE HISTORICAL PERSON IS
William Clark, who, along with his friend Meriwether Lewis, led the Corps of Discovery that explored North America's uncharted West after the Louisiana Purchase.
   

MY FAVORITE PRESIDENT IS
Teddy Roosevelt.
   

MY FAVORITE BOOK IS
The Lords of Discipline, by Pat Conroy.
   

BESIDES MY FAMILY, MY FANTASY PARTY GUESTS WOULD INCLUDE
Mark Twain, Teddy Roosevelt and Monsignor George Tribou, the late principal and rector of Catholic High School for Boys.
   

MY FAVORITE PART OF LIVING IN ARKANSAS IS
The ability to go from city to country in short distances.
   

BEFORE I DIE, I WANT TO VISIT
Montana.
   

THE LAST BOOK I READ WAS
The Sound and the Fury, by William Faulkner.
   

THE MODERN CONVENIENCE I'D MOST LIKE TO DO WITHOUT IS
The cell phone.
   

IF I WEREN'T A TEACHER
I�d want to be a novelist.
   

MOST PEOPLE DON'T KNOW
I have actually written a novel, unpublished. It's about a Catholic high school with a legendary priest/principal and a young teacher who has to overcome all kinds of odds and ends.
   

ONE WORD TO SUM ME UP
Loyal.

This story was published Sunday, April 10, 2005