Parents, alumni gather to honor Driscoll's final graduating class

Driscoll Catholic High School's senior class walked onto Robert A. Barth Field for the final time on Sunday.

After four years, graduation had finally come.

The same field where countless students, faculty and alumni watched years of championship high school football games served as fitting place for the students to say goodbye to for the last time to the Addison school.

"I feel extraordinarily honored to be named one of the valedictorians of the last class at Driscoll," Steven Schwabe said before more than 80 of his classmates, as well as hundreds of parents and alumni who filled the grandstands. "This is by no means a funeral ... but a celebration of this 43-year-old institution."

Sunday's commencement exercises were, for the most part, standard fare for the small, Catholic school.

There was the usual pomp and circumstance. Mass was celebrated on the 50-yard line. Random squeals erupted from the audience each time the name of a loved one was called out to receive a diploma.

And several neighbors living near the school had gathered along the edges of the football field's fence to watch the nearly two-hour-long services.

But 16-year-old Andrew White couldn't help but think about what life would be like come next fall, starting from scratch at St. Viator High School in Arlington Heights.

"I live right across the street from Driscoll," White said shortly after the services. "It's a melancholy moment to see all of this end. And it's going to be tough moving to a new school, with meeting all new people and getting used to a whole new environment."

While Raphael Matug's daughter, Ashley, was finishing her high school career on Sunday, the Bensenville man had hoped to send his 14-year-old son, Casey, to the school.

"It's just a shame they had to close," he said. "We tried to save the place, but it just didn't work out."

In the last month, Driscoll supporters raised almost $1 million in three weeks in a furious effort to save the school, even presenting an operating plan to the Christian Brothers, who run the school for the Joliet Diocese.

Mary Kaban was among the parents and alumni who fought to keep Driscoll from shutting its doors.

"We were in shock when we first heard the school was closing down," Mary Kaban said during a break from snapping photos with family members and her son Matthew, a newly minted high school graduate who will be starting school this fall at Elmhurst College.

"We thought we could get things going again with all the effort," she said. "But it just wasn't meant to be."