I graduated from Bergan High School in 1976.
The school first opened its doors in 1964 and by 1988 it merged with two of the other Catholic High Schools in Peoria: Spalding and The Academy of Our Lady for financial reasons. Then they re-named it Notre Dame High School.
I thought it would be fun to visit both schools via the internet and photos from a couple blog posts I took while revisiting my alma mater!
Just like Dave Edmunds, let’s go back to school days!
——
ARCHBISHOP GERALD T. BERGAN (UNC)
Bergan High School was named after Archbishop Gerald T. Bergan who was the Archbishop of Omaha, Nebraska for 21 years.
Archbishop Bergan was born in Peoria and began his Priesthood in Peoria. He then became Bishop of Des Moines, Iowa and then in 1948 he was named Archbishop of Omaha until he retired in 1969.
He died on July 12, 1972.
There’s one fact that a lot of people don’t know or believe when they hear this: Archbishop Bergan was my great uncle!
Yes, Bergan High School was named after my great uncle who was a great guy.
He was my dad’s uncle and my dad (Gerald T. Wombacher) was named after him as is my brother Tom. We didn’t call him Archbishop though, in our family, we knew him as “Unc.”
Unc was a great guy with a fantastic sense of humor. I can never recall seeing him angry or mad. I always looked forward to his visits when he’d come back to Peoria and stop and visit our family. He was a jolly and lovable guy and everyone in our family loved Unc.
Sadly Unc died in the summer after I graduated from grade school and I was getting ready to go to Bergan. My sister Terry had graduated from Bergan, Tom was a senior and my brother Jim was a sophomore and Jim was no angel at that time, to put it lightly!
There was a painting of Unc on display in the lunchroom at Bergan, which was called, The Commons. Jim used to tell me that he’d tell teachers that Archbishop Bergan was his great uncle and that no one believed him.
When he died, our family went to Omaha for his funeral and it was held in a huge church that was packed with people. Being family we were seated up in the front of the church.
Jim and I looked up in the rafters and there staring down at us was a bunch of teachers, Brothers and Sisters from Bergan with their mouths hanging open realizing that my brother, the trouble-maker was indeed related to the man that the school was named after. Jim laughed and waved to all of them!
I think Unc would’ve laughed at that moment in time!
——
BERGAN HIGH SCHOOL - 1964 TO 1988
I couldn’t find many photos of Bergan online, which surprised me. I could only find these three, but I guess it’s better than nothing!
——
BERGAN YEARBOOKS
Here’s some Bergan Yearbooks I found while surfing images on the internet.
One other interesting thing I found, were the lyrics to Bergan’s school song. If you went to Bergan, feel free to sing along!
——
"Hey Look Us Over, We're Bergan High"
Hey, look us over,
We’re from Bergan High!
They call us the Trojans,
And here’s the reason why:
We’re rough and ready,
Colors Black and White;
And when we meet the enemy,
We'll fight with all our might!
And (So,) we'll be loyal to Bergan,
We'll always be true.
Win for Alma Mater, that's the thing to do,
We're a school with class ,
You can't surpass,
We'll never say die,
We're the Trojans of Bergan High!
——
NOTRE DAME HIGH SCHOOL - MAY 17, 2013
I decided to revisit Notre Dame on this day back in May of 2013 for the blog, because in 1977 I was thrown out of the school and was told never to come back and I never set foot in that school again.
You can read the whole story at that blog post, along with a story about how I almost didn’t graduate because I flunked religion! (*** Warning: There’s some language in the religion story that some may deem offensive. If this is you, just don’t scroll down that far! And don’t say I didn’t warn you!)
I went to the office, they called the principal at the time, Charlie Roy and he was a super-nice guy!
He told me I was welcome in that school anytime I wanted to visit and offered to give me a tour, which I happily took him up on!
There’s the doors where I was thrown out of for being drunk and disorderly at a Bergan Booster event in 1977.
It was fun looking at the school after all these years had gone by and it looked pretty much how I remembered it.
The last photo is me pretending to be myself back in the day!
——
CATHY CURTIS AND TOM MENGER
Cathy Curtis and Tom Menger were two of my favorite teachers at Bergan, they were always patient with me and put up with all the bullshit I used to create!
So it was fun to run into them on this trip back to my old high school!
——
JANUARY 19, 2015: CAN I EAT MY LUNCH IN THE TEACHER’S LOUNGE?
In 2015, I returned to my old school to see if I could eat my lunch in the Teacher’s Lounge, one of the few places in the building that I had never been inside of.
And here I am, successfully inside the Teacher’s Lounge!
Upon entering, I met up once again with Tom Menger and he happily posed for a picture!
I had forgotten that my friend Andrew (on the right) taught here back then and he was seated with Luke so I plopped down and had my lunch with them.
Here’s some photos from my time in the Teacher’s Lounge including a lounge area and items in their refrigerator.
On my way out, I took a shot of The Commons area and I ran into Cathy Curtis and took a shot of her smiling face. Thanks for always being nice to me in those four high school years, Cathy! Great to see her again! Click here to see this full post from 2015.
——
Related Posts: Meanwhile, Back In Peoria’s Past: Peoria’s Irish Pubs, Sandy’s Drive-In and The Rialto Theater.