Aquinas College High School in Columbus was open for 60 years and has been closed for just as long. Although it no longer exists physically, an active alumni group has ensured that the school continues to play a role in educating students in diocesan schools.
For the 31st straight year, the Aquinas Alumni Association has awarded scholarships to eighth graders entering diocesan high schools. Most recently, $13,492 in scholarship aid was presented to six students.
Since the association began its scholarship program in 1994, 191 students have received $538,727 in scholarship money through an endowment fund managed by The Catholic Foundation. The fund has a balance of $480,700, which will enable it to continue distributing benefits even after the school no longer has any living graduates.
Aquinas High School existed from 1905 to 1965. Alumni association president Lou Nobile said about 840 of its 4,200 graduates are alive, with the youngest being 77 years old and the oldest in their 90s. “I’d love to be in touch with more people, but only about half the graduates have email addresses,” he said.
Nobile said about 40 percent of Aquinas graduates live in the Columbus area and 60 to 70 attend the association’s meetings on the first Monday of each month between April and October, except for July. The September meeting is on the second Monday because of the Labor Day holiday. Five of the meetings are at the TAT restaurant on Columbus’ east side, operated by the family of the late Jim Corrova, a member of the Aquinas class of 1953.
The group meets once a year in the Aquinas Room of Columbus St. Charles Preparatory School, where every class picture, athletic trophies, letter jackets and sweaters and other school memorabilia are displayed.
Those items were in a room at what is now the Museum of Catholic Art and History when the institution was located at the former Columbus Holy Family School. When conditions there were found to be unsafe, the museum in 2021 was moved to its current location across from St. Joseph Cathedral and St. Charles volunteered to be the new site for the Aquinas collection.
“Administrators from St. Charles called and said they’d be proud to display what we had in the museum. We were delighted because Aquinas and St. Charles always had a fierce but friendly rivalry as the only two all-boys schools in the Diocese of Columbus,” Nobile said.
After Aquinas High School closed, its alumni association eventually became inactive until the late 1990s, when it was revived by 1952 Aquinas graduate John Cross, Nobile said. Its regular meetings have been at the TAT since that time. “Jim Corrova invited us and his daughters have continued to graciously welcome us since his death,” Nobile said. “The restaurant is closed on Mondays, but the Corrovas open it just to accommodate us.”
Nobile said that the scholarships, one of the alumni association’s most significant expenses each year is for Masses for deceased Aquinas graduates, which are celebrated by the Dominican Fathers at Columbus St. Patrick Church. The church was adjacent to Aquinas and was closely associated with the school throughout its history.
This past December, the Dominicans asked Aquinas alumni to provide an honor guard for relics of St. Thomas Aquinas that were displayed at St. Patrick’s for two days. Several association members responded and Nobile said most wore Aquinas letter sweaters and jackets while being part of the event.
For 10 years, the alumni association hosted a golf tournament in which teams of St. Charles and Aquinas graduates competed against each other. “That ended about 10 years ago as the Aquinas graduates got older and realized there wouldn’t be younger guys to replace them,” Nobile said. The association used to host an all-class reunion, which also ended a few years ago, said Nobile, a member of the school’s class of 1957 who has been alumni association president since 2003.
“I’ve been president for so long because I do enjoy the job and the continuing contact with other alumni,” he said. “The school was very important to me, as I think it was to most Aquinas graduates, and the bond among us has gotten stronger as we’ve gotten older. I’m in my mid-80s and don’t know how much longer I can handle the job of keeping the association going, but then none of us are getting any younger.”
Besides Nobile, association officers are Don Laird (class of 1958), vice president; Paul Nobile (1957), treasurer; Don Schlegel (1965), curator; Frank Roberts (1958), event chairman; Steve Brown (1960), webmaster; and Mike West (1965), transportation coordinator.
“As long as we’re able, we will continue to live up to a statement in the 1963 Aquinas yearbook – ‘We are determined that so long as we are, Aquinas will be,’” Nobile said.
For more on the association, including all the class pictures, go to its website, www.columbusaquinas.com.