The former director of the secondary school of St. Patrick
Brother Conrad Diebold was the long-time principal and then president of St. Patrick’s High School on the northwest side, where he continued to teach until the day he died.
Diebold helped oversee the transition of the 161-year-old Catholic high school for boys to more secular leadership and placed a greater emphasis on providing educational facilities for the visual arts, spearheading a fundraising campaign to build an addition that included a state-of-the-art theater.
“Brother Conrad is a true visionary for St. Patrick’s High School,” said St. Patrick’s President Dan Santucci, a former St. Pat’s student who played for the Cincinnati Bengals. “What was done under his leadership really took our school to a new level, and while he was busy at work focusing on those things, he always made time to visit with his students and meet with you, especially before as we transitioned to college and the next stage of our lives.”
Diebold, 85, died Oct. 10 of a heart attack while walking near his St. Patrick’s home, said his niece, Terri Brownen.
Born in Minneapolis, Diebold joined the Christian School Brothers in 1957. He received his bachelor’s degree from St. Mary’s University of Minnesota in 1961 and immediately afterward moved to Chicago to begin teaching at St. Patrick’s School.
He received his master’s degree from St. Mary’s School in 1966, the same year he moved to St. Paul’s High School on the South Side as principal, serving in that position until 1974. After that, Diebold held a position in the leadership of the province of the Christian brothers. until 1982
After taking a year off in Europe, Diebold returned to St. Patrick in 1983 as principal. In 1987, he became the school’s president, a role similar to that of a superintendent.
“He always wanted to make us better,” said Signature Bank President and CEO Michael “Mick” O’Rourke, a former student who now chairs the St. Patrick’s. “Deep down, he was the same person he was in the beginning – he was a teacher. I’m in my 50s and he’s still trying to make me better as a writer and speaker, which I’ve always appreciated.”
O’Rourke recalled Diebold’s push to expand the school with a two-story building built between 1998 and 2000 that included a new theater, an auxiliary gym and spaces for visual arts and music. O’Rourke also noted that Diebold recognized the need for greater oversight of the school by lay leaders.
Joe Schmidt, who was the school’s principal while Diebold was president, recalled that Diebold successfully “led the charge” to improve its fine arts offerings.
“He and the chairman of the board at the time were catalysts and ahead of their time,” Schmidt said. “Here we were at an all-boys school on the northwest side, and we put on a theater that was better than anything else in Chicago.”
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Schmidt also noted that Diebold was at the forefront of realizing that during his tenure, the Christian Brothers were no longer able to manage all aspects of the school.
“In 1987, when he took office (president), the Christian Brothers ordered that there be a president and director of St. Patrick’s. Part of it was that they were smart enough to know that we had better start training lay people because they were going to run our schools,” Schmidt said. “There is only one brother left at school.”
After retiring in 2013, Diebold continued to live in a house adjacent to the school and often acted as a substitute teacher. On the morning he died, his replacement was teaching several classes at the school, Schmidt said.
There were no other survivors.
Services were held.
Bob Goldsboro is a freelance reporter.
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