School benefits from service of deacon ‘on loan’

By Deacon Matthew Hecker, Ph.D.
for the Register

Deacon Bob Viergutz, music teacher at Aquinas High School in David City, was not a typical applicant for a teaching job. In fact, he was a retired schoolteacher looking for an altogether different kind of job.

Viergutz was born and raised in Norfolk, and attended Wayne State College as a music performance major.

“My advisor suggested that I get into music education,” he said.  “I fought that for a little while,” he admitted, but decided to finish up the degree.

His first teaching job was in Battle Creek, for six years. When the job for a band director at Norfolk Junior High was open, “I was offered that job and took it,” he said. He was the junior high band director and assistant high school band director for 31 years.

“It was a great career,” he said.

In 2021, Viergutz was seven years past the time he was eligible to retire, just as the COVID-19 pandemic was waning.

“The band director at the high school asked me one morning, ‘Why are you still teaching?’” Viergutz said. “I didn’t really have a great answer for him. So I retired that May.”

Viergutz’ wife, Reyne, (RUH-nay) grew up in David City, where her parents were still living then.

“The first week of June my mother-in-law died suddenly,” Deacon Viergutz said. My father-in-law had dementia. We didn’t want to put him in a nursing home. My wife asked if I would be willing to take care of him in order to keep him at home. She was still working so I said, ‘sure.’

“For nine months, I was in David City four days a week, taking care of my father-in-law. I got to know the community very well.”

Then in March of 2022, his father-in-law died.

“My wife and I decided to buy their house and the thought was, when we both retired, we would move here,” he said.
“I figured I would get some sort of retirement job here in David City,” Viergutz said. “Something simple, like stocking shelves at the grocery store. But God had a different plan.”

About the same time the Viergutzes were relocating to David City, longtime Aquinas High School band director Helen Ostdiek announced her retirement. Viergutz decided to put in an application to “see what happens.”

They offered him the band job, and a chance to teach a (sophomore) religion class. He was eager to do so, having never had the opportunity while teaching in public schools.

If a retired Norfolk Public Schools teacher taking the band director job at a Catholic school in David City seems unlikely, Viergutz’s journey to the diaconate is perhaps more unlikely.

Viergutz is an ordained permanent deacon, incardinated in the Archdiocese of Omaha. However, he was raised in the Lutheran Church.

“My wife is a cradle Catholic,” he said. “When we were dating and first married, we attended both churches. We went to one church on Saturday night and the other on Sunday morning.”

During that time, he recalled, his wife “was very involved in her faith and I was not so involved in the Lutheran faith.”

She would invite him to come along and help her with events.

“I kind of started feeling this pull; maybe we should be going to the same Church and sharing the same faith life,” he said. “I was very impressed by the Catholic faith.”

He started RCIA and, at the age of 40, was received into the Catholic Church.

The pair continued doing more for the Church. They started working at Sacred Heart J.C. Camp, a five-day summer camp for eighth-graders.

“I did that every summer for 20 years,” he said.

“Doing various things like that, pretty soon, people started asking, ‘Have you ever considered being a deacon?’ We had several deacons in our parish.”

In particular, Viergutz, said, he admired Deacon Skip St. Arnold at Sacred Heart Parish in Norfolk. “He was a big role model for me.”

Eventually, after having enough people ask if he’d thought about becoming a deacon, Viergutz said to himself, “Maybe God is trying to tell me something.”

He spoke with Reyne about it and then made the decision to apply for the Archdiocese’s formation program. He was accepted in 2006, at the age of 45, and began formation. He was ordained in October 2010.

Officially, Viergutz remains attached to the Archdiocese of Omaha.

“I guess you could say I’m on loan to the Diocese of Lincoln,” is how he put it. Viergutz was granted faculties to serve as a deacon in the Lincoln Diocese, so he serves on the altar at St. Mary Parish and also at Aquinas.

While it might not be the retirement plan he had in mind, Viergutz is genuinely excited about returning to the classroom in a Catholic school setting.

“It’s really nice to be able to pray at the end of the period,” he said. “Pray with the kids before they perform. Do a rosary on the bus as we’re traveling. It’s a full integration of teaching and diaconal ministry.”

Recently, under Viergutz’s direction, the Aquinas band was recognized by the Nebraska School Activities Association (NSAA) for its outstanding performance.

As the psalmist says:
Planted in the house of the Lord, they shall bear fruit even in old age, they will stay fresh and green, to proclaim: “The Lord is just; my rock, in whom there is no wrong.” Psalm 92:14-16.