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   Though St. John Parish and Catholic Student Center was not formally established until 1965, the history of its mission begins in the earliest days of Stillwater. With the famous Land Run of April 1889, what is now Payne County was open to white settlement. In the same year, the newly formed territorial legislature established Oklahoma Agricultural and Mechanical College and chose Stillwater as its home. From June 1890, settlers arrived in increasing numbers. As the town and the College grew, so did the Catholic community.

    In the early years, Catholic ministry was in the care of Benedictine monks from St. Gregory's Abbey. Father Felix DeGrasse, O.S.B., pastor of Guthrie, was missionary to the region until 1895, when a parish was established at Perry with Stillwater as one of its missions.

    The first Catholic church in Stillwater, St. Francis Xavier, was built in 1899. Its first pastor was appointed the following year. From the first days, the parish tried to meet the needs of the community of Catholic students at Oklahoma A & M. The Women's Altar Society hosted a monthly dinner for Catholic students. But around 1914, the dinners were discontinued. There was little attempt to do more until, on March 17, 1932, Father C. A. McGinty (pastor 1932-39) and Mr. and Mrs. Val Schott founded the Newman apostolate. The monthly dinners were resumed, and by 1936 the Newman Club had sixty members and had joined the national Newman society.

    During the pastorate of Father Victor Reed (1940-1947), enrollment at Oklahoma A & M increased dramatically, and so did the size of the Catholic community. While World War II continued in Europe and the Pacific, many Waves and Wacs were stationed in and around Stillwater. At war's end, returning servicemen took advantage of the G.I. Bill, student loan programs, and low tuition rates and flocked to colleges throughout the country, Oklahoma A & M included. Father Reed carried on the parish's work with greater and greater numbers of students.

    His successor, Father Eric Beavers (1949-1957) was quick to see the need for a full-time priest in campus ministry. As a result of Father Beevers' efforts, a Trinitarian priest, Father Celestine Pfannenstiel (1948-1954) was named as assistant pastor of St. Francis and chaplain to the community of Catholic students. It was he who arranged the purchase of lots 13 through 26 North Knoblock, where St. John's would eventually rise.

    On the site stood a small run-down frame house. Students soon christened it The Shack. With various rooms and wings subsequently added, the house looked so disreputable that students were often ashamed to bring friends to parish functions. Yet The Shack became and remained a center of campus life, in part because its library was one of the few places where students could meet and study late into the night.

    In 1954, Father Celestine was recalled by his religious community. From then on, diocesan priests served as assistant pastors at St. Francis and as chaplains to the students. In 1958, the newly ordained Father Clement Pribil was appointed to the post. He undertook a reorganization of the campus ministry program. With the help of Newman president Bob Moon, a student majoring in architecture, he was determined to demonstrate to the community that religion was intellectually respectable and personally indispensable.

    Father Pribil, a graduate of the University of Louvain, Belgium, obtained university approval for a four-year program in religious studies, with courses in church doctrine, morality, Scripture, and history. He also instituted an impressive series of lectures as a regular feature of Newman Center activities to complement the Center's social functions.

    Father Pribil and Bob Moon gave much thought to the design of a permanent Catholic Student Center that would be functional, attractive, and economical. Unfortunately, the diocese was deeply in debt at the time, and Bishop Victor Reed was hesitant about approving expenditures for a new building and its maintenance. But, in March 1964, fundraising began in earnest. The students showed an amazing willingness to raise money for the building. It was almost a crusade. At the outset they pledged thirty thousand dollars; within three weeks, they oversubscribed the amount by ten thousand dollars. They also put together a statewide organization that targeted alumni and parents for contributions. The diocese contributed a third of the three hundred thousand dollar cost of the project.

    On May 2, 1965, Bishop Reed dedicated the new facilities and canonically erected St. John Parish and Catholic Student Center. Father Pribil was named first pastor of the student group that had been in existence for some thirty years. That summer The Shack was finally demolished.

    The following year Father Pribil was appointed vice-rector of the American College of the University of Louvain, and in 1970 became its rector. Pastors who succeeded him at St. Joints were Father James Halpine (1966-1967), Kenneth King (1967-1969), and Patrick Quirk (1969-1973).

    On February 7, 1973, the Diocese of Tulsa was formally erected and Bernard J. Ganter ordained as its first bishop. Among Bishop Ganter's first acts was the appointment of Father Robert Schlitz as pastor of St. John's. Father Bob, as he would be known on the Stillwater campus for the next fourteen years, had previously served as chaplain at the University of Tulsa. Father Bob provided strong leadership and a sense of stability to Catholic campus ministry at St. John's. A tribute to his pastorate is the large number of men who entered seminary studies from St. John's during his years here.

    In 1977, Deacon James Breazile arrived from Missouri and was assigned to serve as the first parish deacon. In 1982, Fr. Bob was joined by a ministry pair from the Chicago area, Deacon Don Mahlmeister and his wife, Mary, on the parish staff. They functioned as OSU Campus Ministers, as well as many other duties for the parish until Deacon Don's sudden death in 1989. In late 1987, Bishop Beltran requested that Deacon Bill Moler, assigned to St. Francis Xavier parish in Stillwater, exchange parish assignments with Deacon Breazile.

    In 1987 Father Christopher Daigle was named pastor and served with distinction untill illness forced his resignation in 1990, when he was replaced by Father Tam. N. Nguyen. Before coming to St. John’s, Father Tam served as pastor of churches in Cushing, Drumright and Bristow (1985-87), and in Tahlequah and Westville (1989-90). The newly-ordained Father Bryan Brooks, and OSU alumnus, joined St. John’s staff in 1993 as associate pastor. 

    Also in 1993, Fr. Tam began a successful stewardship program for the parish, which continues to be a blessing to the present day. In 1996, Fr. Tam was named pastor of Saints Peter and Paul parish in Tulsa; and Fr. Bryan Brooks received his first pastorate at Saint Anthony and Uganda Martyrs churches in Okmulgee.

    Fr. Joe C. Townsend was appointed pastor at St. John's in 1996. He had previously been pastor at St. John's in Bartlesville, with the mission parish of Our Lady of Guadalupe at Dewey. Before that he had served as pastor at St. Monica and St. Augustine churches in Tulsa, with chaplain duties at Holy Family School. 

    In 1997, he was joined by Fr. Kenneth Iheanachoe, a Nigerian priest, as associate pastor. Also in 1997, the mission parish of St. John's in Pawnee was added to Fr. Joe's pastoral responsability, and, in this same year the first two deacons to be called and ordained out of this congregation, Deacons Richard Berberet and Thomas Haan, were assigned to the parish staff. Fr. Joe has continued the successful stewardship program begun by Fr. Tam; and the parish has greatly benefitted from the generous giving of time, talent, and treasure by the parishioners. 

    In early 1999, Fr. Kenneth received his first pastorate in the Tulsa diocese at St. Bridget church in Tahlequah, and the mission parish of St. John's at Pawnee was reassigned to Fr. Joe as administrator, but to be serviced by priests from the Tulsa area. 

    In July 2002, Fr. Joe Townsend was reassigned to Saints Peter and Paul Church in Tulsa. Fr. Kenneth Harder, formerly pastor of Saint Mark's Church in Pryor and Holy Cross Church in Wagoner, was assigned as pastor of both Saint John's University Parish and Saint Francis Xavier Parish. Newly ordained Fr. David Medina was assigned as Associate Pastor for both parishes as well.

This history was edited from a text prepared in 1993 by Father James D. White, historian of the Diocese of Tulsa, who drew heavily from a work prepared by Sister M. Ursula Thomas, O.S.B., and from the archives of the diocese.

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