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NOTRE DAME (1957)Southwest Denver grew rapidly during the 1950s and only ten years after All Saints parish was founded, Archbishop Vehr paid $30,000 for another new church site. He authorized the new parish on August 14, 1957, and selected Father William Joseph Koontz, chaplain of the Englewood Federal Correctional Center, as the founding pastor. Father Koontz, an Indiana native trained at Regis College and St. Thomas Seminary, prayerfully buried some religious medals on the vacant site and went to work. He teamed up with architect John K. Monroe to plan a modern brick church with an L-shaped design. It included seating for 650 in the main church hall, a 275-seat adjoining hall, and three classrooms and a cafeteria designed to be the first part of a school wing. While this $325,000, one-story parish plant was under construction, the first Mass was held on October 13, 1957, in the auditorium of Dorothea Kunsmiller Junior High School. Parishioners acquired a tri-level home at 2207 South Zenobia Street and made the upstairs into a rectory for Father Koontz, converting the basement into a chapel for daily Masses, beginning on December 18, 1957. Parishioners celebrated their first service in the new church at midnight, on Christmas Eve of 1958. The faithful came not only for the Mass but also for the unveiling of their impressive, modern house of God. Stig Gusterman, a Colorado craftsman, had made the tabernacle, candlesticks, candelabrum, ciboria, and sanctuary appointments. Giacumo Mussers' Sculpture Studios in Bologna, Italy, provided the statues, crucifixes, and stations of the cross. Dark, dramatic stained glass windows depict Old and New Testament scenes. Over the main entrance, facing west, a statue of Our Lady of the Universe greeted churchgoers. Another tribute to Notre Dame was the shrine on the north side of the building, featuring a marble Pieta. The shrine was lit every night until vandals shot off Mary's nose. Notre Dame School thrived under the Dominican Sisters from Our Lady of the Elms Motherhouse in Akron, Ohio. Before expanding the school, the parish helped the sisters construct a convent at 2141 South Zenobia Street, which was finished and blessed by Archbishop Casey on June 22, 1967. The following year, more classroom space was created to provide two classrooms for each of the school's six grades. At the suggestion of Father Koontz, Notre Dame launched a special education program in 1963 for slow learners and physically handicapped children. This pioneer program evolved into an archdiocesen wide program, the Ministry to the Handicapped directed by Cary Carron, who had worked with Father Koontz to set up the program at Notre Dame. The third major construction project was a new rectory/parish center, an imposing column-and-portico structure at the northeast corner of South Sheridan and West Evans. Architect Joseph Pahl, who had created the Pieta shrine for the parish, designed the rectory/administration building. Father Koontz, who had built Notre Dame despite health problems, died of a heart attack as the rectory was being completed. Monsignor Richard C. Heister, director of the Cathedral choir and of Camp St. Malo, became the second pastor of Notre Dame. A Denver native educated at Regis College and St. Thomas Seminary, he had also attended the Gregorian University in Rome, where he was ordained on July 25, 1937. During World War II, he served in the U.S. Chaplain's Corps, earning a Silver Star, a Purple Heart, and a Bronze Star. Monsignor Heister and the Holy Name Society transformed the vacant land south of the parish center into an athletic field in 1971. That year, the Altar and Rosary Society installed the church's fine stained glass windows and a new organ. A new family center, designed by Ames and Thorpe Architects, Inc., opened in 1974. The white-robed Dominicans left the parish, and their convent was converted into a kindergarten and preschool christened Koontz Hall. Seventh and eighth-grade classrooms were built in the basement of the Family Center. Musically, the church and school excelled, thanks to the talents of banjo-playing Monsignor Heister and children's choir director, Leo Frazier. Notre Dame School produced a national champion in 1982, when Molly Dieveney went to Washington, D.C. to win the National Spelling Bee. In 1982, Notre Dame celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary by publishing a full-color parish history. After Monsignor Heister retired in 1983, the family center was renamed for him. Father Joseph O'Malley, who had been assistant pastor at Notre Dame from 1959 to 1962, returned in 1983 as pastor. Under Father O'Malley, the parish continues to operate a kindergarten and an eight-grade school, as well as religious education and a youth center for a stable parish of about 1,800 households. Monsignor Heister, who remains in residence at Notre Dame, reflected on its relatively short but distinguished history:
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