If Trivial Pursuit ever invented a game involving facts about St. Edmond High School, you’d want your partner to be Pat Hassett. You couldn’t lose.

Hassett, a member of the Class of 1960, has been chronicling the history of the Catholic high school for 45 years, operating from a first-floor office off the school library called the Alumni Room – stuffed full of all kinds of items relating to the school.

If there was such a Trivial Pursuit game, here are some questions that might be posed. Go to the bottom of this article for the answers. No peeking!

Who is St. Edmond named for?

What is the origin of the school’s mascot and nickname, Gaels?

Who was the school’s first homecoming queen and what year?

What was the peak enrollment year for a St. Edmond senior class?

What was the first St. Edmond school play?

When did girls begin wearing uniforms – gray wool blazer and skirt?

When did a St. Edmond athletic team win the school’s first state championship? In what sport, and as a bonus, who was the all-state player that led the Gaels?

Who holds the boys’ basketball school record for most points in one game, and what year?

What year did sanctioned girls’ sports begin? In what sport?

What year did St. Edmond and Fort Dodge Senior High hold their homecoming parade together?

And then here is a question this member of the Class of 1964 posted to Pat: Why does she volunteer and what does she get from it all?

“St. Edmond is my family. And they’ve always been good to my own family. I’ve always liked sports and liked kids and love to be close to the kids” said Hassett, who has been a second-grade helper for the past 17 years, currently working with Ann Knobbe’s class.

“I have no children, so my St. Edmond children are my children. I always say that I now have 385 grandchildren – the number of children in the second-grade classes I’ve helped with since the 2005-06 school year. Almost all the kids call me Grandma Pat.”

“Grandma Pat” is part of the fabric of the high school that has graduated 5,856 students over its history. Today, the original building has been expanded to accommodate all grades – from preschool through senior high school. And it’s right next door to Holy Trinity Catholic Church.

“I personally would say Pat bleeds green,” said Susan Laufersweiler, director of development for St. Edmond Catholic Schools. “She is a true historian of our school. We are so fortunate that she dedicates so much of her time to documenting and keeping up with the history of this school.

“She is the biggest Gael fan as she attends almost every game our students play to cheer them on to victory. She loves to volunteer in the second-grade room and even had a shirt made that says ‘Name, Number, Date’ to help kids remember to put their headings on their papers.”

Hassett was a Valentine’s Day baby, born Feb. 14, 1942, at a hospital in Detroit to Robert and Anna Marie Hassett. Her father was an agent for New York Life Insurance. The family moved to Sloan, Iowa, when she was in kindergarten and then to Fort Dodge in 1955 when her dad joined Lee Oester in a New York Life Insurance agency. The Hassetts had six children at the time – Micki, Pat, Bob, Rusty, Jim and Dick. A seventh, Joe, joined them in late 1955 when he was born at Fort Dodge’s Mercy Hospital.

The family’s move to Fort Dodge came in the same year that St. Edmond High School opened, when long-standing high schools at Corpus Christi and Sacred Heart merged to offer classes in a newly constructed building at 501 N. 22nd St.

All seven Hassett children graduated from St. Edmond – Micki in 1958, Pat in 1960, Bob in 1961, Rusty in 1963, Jim in 1966, Dick in 1970 and Joe in 1974. (Today, three are deceased – Micki, Jim and Joe.)

Pat Hassett worked at Fantles department store while attending high school. After graduation, she joined a friend in attending classes at AIB College of Business in Des Moines. She took business courses and graduated in nine months, then returned to Fort Dodge where she was hired by Fort Dodge Labs, working there from 1962 to 1966.

She moved to Minneapolis and was with First National Bank when she got a call from Don Perry, manager of Fantles, asking if she would return to Fort Dodge to help start up a Fantles store in the new Crossroads Mall. She worked there part-time for two years before joining Iowa-Illinois Gas and Electric as a bookkeeper, then a teller, from 1968 to 1992. Hassett joined the City of Fort Dodge Water Department in 1993 as a billing clerk and worked there until retiring in 2004.

Hassett started as a second-grade helper in 2005, but she had long been active with Catholic schools from the time she started as an eighth grader at Corpus Christi when her family moved to Fort Dodge. Her efforts earned her the distinction of being the first recipient of the Spirit of St. Edmond Alumni Award in 1994.

“Everyone loves Grandma Pat,” said Tabitha Acree, principal for pre-kindergarten through grade 8. “She supports ALL students, but particularly our second-grade students who are getting ready for their sacraments. Grandma Pat is known for giving a $2 bill to students. Both my boys still have theirs and they are in their 20s.

“Grandma Pat is known for school spirit and attends assemblies, sporting events, school masses, etc. She encourages everyone to stand during our school song and is one of the biggest fans for our students. Grandma Pat spends countless hours documenting our school events (which helps staff and coaches). She keeps our alumni room updated. You can always go there to learn about the history of our school.”

The genesis for Hassett’s historical work came in 1977 when a friend asked her if a list existed of all the graduates of St. Edmond. She typed in names from yearbooks and then found their addresses at the time they were attending school. Sister Dominic Church worked with her on the project.

Hassett had always been saving clippings involving St. Edmond students, but it was when custodian Skip Ostrander rescued boxes of clippings that were about to be thrown out that her work as school historian intensified.

“We are so lucky he saved them for us,” she said.

She started organizing the clippings in binders by years and activities. She has a filing system that she uses to keep track of the current year at the same time as organizing materials from past years. One of her binders contains all the historical firsts for the school.

She estimates that she has 5,000 newspaper clippings, placed in folders for each of the 67 years of the high school’s existence. In the Alumni Room, you can find photos, every high school yearbook, many middle school yearbooks, sports books, VHS tapes of musicals, Tri Crown newspapers, Sharing the Spirit magazines, trophies, letter jackets, and much, much more.

“All the time, people ask me a question,” she said. “I’ll write it down and tell them I’ll get back to them. Once in a while, people will email me. I get back to them as quickly as I can.”

She welcomes donations of any materials relating to the school. They can be dropped off at the Development Office. Her phone is 515-570-7373 and her email – hamp@frontiernet.net.

“I like finding answers for sports or St. Edmond questions,” Hassett said. “I get to know the kids and parents that way. Most of the time when someone asks me something, I will ask the teachers or coaches and most of the time I get some kind of answer. Sometimes they will show me how to get the answers on Google.

“I hope when I’m gone someone will keep it going. I have been at St. Edmond since the school opened and hope to be with them for many more years.”

Who is St. Edmond named for?

Answer: Bishop Edmond Heelan, once bishop of the Sioux City Diocese, and St. Edmond of England, an Anglo king of the 4th Century.

What is the origin of the school’s mascot and nickname, Gael?

Answer: Gael was an Irish warrior. When the high school opened, it held a contest for a school nickname; from a list of 100 entries, senior Karen Coleman was the winner and received a $25 savings bond.

Who was the school’s first homecoming queen and what year?

Answer: Angie Tornabane, 1955.

What was the peak enrollment year for a St. Edmond senior class?

Answer: Senior class of 1968-69, 166 members. (Note: the first senior class of 1955-56 had 69 members and the most recent graduating senior class of 2021-22 had 45 members.)

What was the first St. Edmond school play?

Answer: “Special Delivery.”

When did girls begin wearing uniforms – gray wool blazer and skirt?

Answer: 1961-62.

When did a St. Edmond athletic team win the school’s first state championship? In what sport, and as a bonus, who was the all-state player that led the Gaels?

Answer: The 1999-2000 Gaels boys basketball team won the Iowa Class 2A title, led by guard Jack Brownlee who was Class 2A Player of the Year. The coach then was Adolph Kochendorfer.

Who holds the boys’ basketball school record for most points in one game, and what year?

Answer: John Anderson, Class of 1964, 50 points, against South Hamilton on Jan. 18, 1964. (NOTE: Anderson went on to star at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minn., where he rejoined St. Edmond teammate Dan Hansard, Class of 1963, who at 6-foot-10 is believed to be the tallest player ever to play at St. Edmond.)

What year did sanctioned girls’ sports begin at St. Edmond? In what sport?

Answer: Girls volleyball started in 1971, coached by Sue Koenitz. Two years later, girls’ 6-on-6 basketball began, coached by Keith Goedken.

What year did St. Edmond and Fort Dodge Senior High hold their homecoming parade together? Answer: 2007.