Booster Club, the unsung hero of Catholic High’s activities

Every student who has participated in extracurricular activities has been affected by the Booster Club, yet no one knows what it is. These generous parents and alumni help Catholic High in many ways.

Mrs. Anne Carter,  Catholic High’s Development Director, said, “The Booster Club exists in order to raise money for extracurricular activities in the school so students don’t have to pay an activity fee. Therefore, every boy can participate in an activity. It’s not just sports related; its the play, chess club, ham radio as well as sports.”

Many people think of the Booster Club as the group that gets the football team their uniforms, but they also help fund the journalism class in their annual trip to Arkansas Scholastic Press Association’s convention each year. They help fund every single extracurricular activity.

Dr. Charles James said, “To me the Booster Club is a group that meets monthly to propose, discuss, and organize Catholic High sports, spirit, and fundraiser events to improve and give back financial and volunteer support efforts to the extracurricular Catholic High community. We try to enrich the Catholic High experience for students, parents, and alumni.”

The Booster Club is involved in many activities around the campus. Most recently they were involved with the auction. Dr. James said, “We have committees for the Catholic High auction, the chili cookoff, the 5k, and basically every fundraiser.”

Mr. Paul Strack said, “You will typically find Booster Club members volunteering at almost every athletic event and other activities throughout the year. Annually, [the activity of the club] contributes over $100,000 to Catholic High.”

Dr. James said, “I joined the Booster Club at the encouragement of a past president and current member, Dr. Les Cooner, in order to communicate about the wrestling team and seek information on organizing special matches. For example, we organized a Central match and invited Catholic High alumni, and we organized the June outdoor Rocket Rumble wrestling event. I was an at-large member that represented wrestling. I needed to go to the meetings in order to find out the rules of actually organizing a wrestling match. How would we do refreshments? How do we promote the matches? I eventually decided to join the Booster club full-time in order to represent wrestling.”

Mr. Strack said, “There’s a funny story of how I first joined the Booster Club. During my first job after graduating college, I was working for the public accounting firm of Ernst & Young. My boss, Dennis Wewers, was [then] the treasurer of the Booster Club and suggested I join him for a meeting. Since he was my boss, I couldn’t say no. So when I went to the meeting, Dennis announced that he was retiring as the Booster Club treasurer, and then announced that I was his replacement. That was in 1986, and I have been treasurer ever since.

“As treasurer, I am responsible for maintaining the financial records of the organization.I report on the financial status of the Booster Club. Additionally, I pay invoices and submit reimbursements when needed, and for some strange reason, the treasurer has always had the responsibility of selling the football programs at the home

football games.”

The Booster Club is very open to new members, and it is made up of parents of students who play sports, parents of alumni, and simply people who enjoy helping out Catholic High and its students. Mrs. Carter said, “The meetings are open to everybody; non-members are welcome. Sometimes representatives from a certain sport or extracurricular activity will only come for a meeting or two in order to speak about the  activity that they are representing.”

Mrs. Carter said, “I sit on the board to let the members know what is going on in the Alumni Association, and I assist with the golf tournament and the auction that we put on. The Booster Club raises money and the treasurer creates a budget report and then when we get to a certain amount he writes a check to the school. Mr. Straessle deals with it then.”

She said, “The meetings are the first Wednesdays of each month. They start at five-thirty in the faculty lounge. They usually go over the treasurer’s report, and then we talk about “old business” meaning the auction, football ticket takers, and the parochial league championship. Then we talk about “new business” which is basketball ticket takers, the chili cookoff that we are going to have,the swim meet that we are going to host, the golf tournament, and stuff like that. New business is basically events brought up for the first time, and old business are events that we have already begun talking about in the near future.

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