Kay’s Memories
1991-2022
Dear Friends,
How do you sum up 31 years in just a few minutes …. Or just a few words? That is a tough one, but here goes.
Father Jim Balint, our founding pastor, was looking for someone to start the faith formation program at the newly-formed parish known at that time by its temporary name as the Catholic Church of West Plano. I was fortunate enough to be in the right place at the right time and was invited by Father Jim to join the staff. Shortly thereafter, Father Jim had a campaign to select the name for our new parish and the plot of land for our future church. The members picked the name Prince of Peace Catholic Community to reflect both parish and the school we were planning. They then selected a 15 acre of property along Village Creek to be our future home.
In the meantime, we rented office space in a commercial office building on Ohio Street and the original staff consisted of just seven of us. Sometimes Father Jim would take us to lunch at Chili’s and we all fit into one booth.
We celebrated our first Mass on February 10, 1991 at the old Lowe’s theater at Preston and Park. It was strange but exciting to have Mass in a movie theater. We could even smell the popcorn being made by the time Mass was over. Mass was held there for a couple of months and then was moved to the cafeteria at Shepton High School which was named Renner at the time. We met at Shepton until the permanent church was opened on Holy Thursday in March of 1994.
At this time the city of Plano and surrounding suburbs were exploding with folks moving into the area. JC Penney had just moved their corporate offices from New York to Plano and a lot of these new Texans were Catholics looking for a home parish.
In no time at all, Father Jim hired Anne Battes-Kirby to be the principal of the school he was envisioning. We rented a one-room suite in a nearby strip mall to be the school. Parents slept on the sidewalk and in their parked cars so they could be first in line to enroll their children in the school. It started out as PreK and quickly grew from there. Additional grades and classes were added once we moved into the new building.
One of the things that I remember most about our time at Shepton was a problem Father Jim saw in people being late for Mass. He decided to bring this to everyone’s attention and hopefully solve the problem by having a contest he named “Get Me to the Church on Time.” He asked the parishioners to create a drawing, painting, or cartoon depicting the theme. After a couple of weeks he had everyone bring their artwork to his office and he selected the winner. It was a water color of families walking into a church. He displayed it and all of the other entries in the lobby area at Shepton. Shortly after that we were all gathered to Sunday Mass and it was after 9:00 am and there was no sign of Father Jim. (We didn’t have associate pastors in those days.) Someone called his house, and it turned out that he overslept because it was the weekend to move the clocks forward one hour. Well, you can only imagine how embarrassed he was and how some folks ribbed him about that for quite some time.
During our first three years, because we had no permanent space, our faith formation programs were all home study. FIRE was an intergenerational program where multiple families met in each other’s homes. Also offered was the At Home program where families studied the material once a week in their own homes. The only program that held in our office space was preparation for First Reconciliation and First Communion. We got brave one year and offered on-site Vacation Bible School which was a big hit.
Children’s ministries grew rapidly once we moved to the new church. We added Sunday morning classes, a Special Needs class, expanded Vacation Bible School, and started the Children’s Catechumenate. Since 1991 we have celebrated over 6,000 First Communions and First Reconciliations. In recent years I have noticed that our students are children of the children we had in the early years of the parish.
In 1998 our Religious Education Department won the national Mustard Seed award sponsored by the National Catholic Education Association. It is given annually to the parish that most exemplifies parental involvement in religious education programs. This was acknowledged as quite an achievement by a relatively young parish.
One of my goals for the families in our programs was for them to live the gospel values they were taught. I called it ‘faith in action.’ For many years we participated in the Water For Life project sponsored by Catholic Relief Services. The Water For Life project collected money to build fresh water systems in Third World nations. Our families not only collected their donations, but they also learned how other families struggled to have clean potable water.
Another project that our families took part in for many years was the Potato Project sponsored by the St. Andrew’s Society based in Virginia. Our Vacation Bible School students brought in their donations to help provide money to pay to truck potatoes that were left in the fields. These potatoes were gleaned and trucked to soup kitchens and homeless shelters.
I have tried to set a good example for the children and parents by also putting my faith into action. We are part of the universal Church and not confined by the parameters of Prince of Peace. In 1990-1991 I served as president of the Dallas Diocesan Council of Catholic Women. The moderator of the North Texas Chapter at that time was Father Tom. The National Council of Catholic Women was formed in 1920 at the request of the Council of Catholic Bishops in Washington, DC. Today it is a national organization of almost one million members. I have had the honor to serve as the national secretary and a two-year term as vice president. Prior to that, I was the chair of the commission on Church and Liturgy and was responsible for all of the Masses and liturgies for the national board of directors. My greatest privilege in that capacity was to plan and oversee the very first Mass that was held at the John Paul II Cultural Center in DC.
Another thing that stands out is the Safe Environment Program. Back in the mid-90’s, the Diocese of Dallas was involved in a massive lawsuit because of child sexual abuse in a parish by a diocesan priest. I spoke to Father Jim about this and asked him if we could do something to protect our Prince of Peace children and our entire parish. He was very much in favor of the idea of putting together procedures and a plan and allowed me to see what I could find out. I contacted the business managers at St. Elizabeth Seton and St. Marks, and the three of us pooled our resources to collaborate with a company from North Carolina called Church Law Today. We met with them several times and then started to build a committee to write a training program and procedures to follow in the parish to ensure our children’s safety.
It took quite a while to bring this all together, and when it was finished, the diocese adopted it to satisfy the judgement in the sexual abuse case. This was the foundation of our Safe Environment program. As you know, every parish and Catholic school in the nation is required to have some type of Safe Environment program. Most people don’t know that it all started right here at Prince of Peace.
Another part of my faith in action was being appointed by the bishop to serve on the Pastoral Concerns Board for five years. I currently serve as a member of the diocesan Safe Environment Committee and have been a member of the Dallas Diocesan Council of Catholic Women Board of Directors since 1982.
Besides the wonderful children and parents I have been privileged to serve through the years, my greatest pleasure has been the other staff members and colleagues I have worked with through the years, especially Sue. You are my second family.
My first family is the one I will never be able to say “Thank You” enough too. My beautiful daughters, Daphne and Renee, my awesome sons-in-law Piotr and Jonathan, my husband Jim who is my rock, and Henry who is the most amazing grandson on the
planet. They have supported me, put up with me, and inspired me to do what I wanted to do. Thank you all for enriching my life in ways you will never know.
Peace!
Kay
Note: Kay Elliott is retiring after 31 years of dedicated service to Prince of Peace Catholic Community on July 1, 2022. She will continue to lead our Safe Environment program.