Matt Ledesma
1904 Staff
It’s a little more than 500 miles from Wichita Falls, Texas to Cleveland, Mississippi.
Just under a nine-hour car ride.
It will never be known exactly how long it took a balloon released from Fr. Abstetar Field at Notre Dame Catholic School to reach a farmer’s land just about 20 minutes east of the mighty Mississippi River. But one thing’s for sure.
This year’s celebration of National Catholic Schools Week became Notre Dame’s most memorable to date.
“We tried to really go all out this year in the hopes
of starting some new traditions,” said Notre Dame Director of Enrollment Matt Ledesma. “It’s easy for things to get overwhelming when you’re trying to squeeze in all these great ideas into just a few days. But I think our events really went well and helped make this annual celebration something special.”
The most anticipated event capped off the school’s celebration with all 245 students gathering on the football field for a special presentation. The students, along with faculty and staff, formed a giant “ND!” across the Knights’ gridiron. Each person was given either a
blue or gold balloon with an attached message tied to the strings.
“We put some of our favorite bible verses on one side about spreading the Good News,” said Ledesma. “And on the other we put our school’s contact info and for people to contact us if they found one of the balloons.”
All together about 300 balloons were released into a beautiful blue sky, gently sailing away into the vast unknown. All there was left to do was wait.
It didn’t take long before the first call came in. Just a couple of days later, a farmer from Wilson, Okla., contacted the school to let it know
a balloon had landed on his farm. Ledesma said he was excited and surprised to learn the balloon had made the roughly 75 mile trip north, and thought that would likely be the benchmark.
But God’s message knows no boundaries.
“That next week I was going through our school Twitter account and saw someone had Tweeted us about finding another balloon. The first time I read it I don’t think it totally sunk in. I did kind of a double take.”
Another farmer had come across a balloon. This time just a hop, skip and a jump longer than 510 miles in Cleveland, Miss., population about 12,000 and home to the Fightin’ Wildcats and Trojans.
“He said he checked out our web site and thought our school looked really great. Then he thanked us for the message,” Ledesma said. “I wrote him back thanking him so much for letting us know. I think the Holy Spirit really had a hand in something as incredible as that.”
The balloon release was just
the cap to a memorable week
of festivities.
Wichita Falls Mayor Glenn Barham kicked off the celebration that Monday by delivering a special proclamation in honor of Notre Dame’s 110-year service to the community.
A school-wide assembly was held where Barham presented the proclamation to Notre Dame principal Doug Jones.
Wednesday saw the school dedicate its weekly mass service to all NDCS alumni. Former students Christina (Alonzo) Feldman (’95) and Jina (Guess) Fairchild (’02) participated as readers during the celebration.
Saturday, NDCS Lower Campus hospitality coordinator Cathy McElroy was honored in Fort Worth at the dioceses’ annual banquet. It was McElroy’s second honoring of the week, as she also took a special spot as the exclamation point on the giant “ND!”.
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Good News Travels Far
Above: Faculty, staff and students from Notre Dame Catholic School gather on the football field as part of this year's celebration of National Catholic Schools Week. The group released about 300 blue and gold balloons, each with an attached message about the Good News of God's love.
Above: A few days after releasing the balloons, Notre Dame Catholic School began receiving calls from people in different states who had found them.