UNITED STATES
America Magazine
Jim McDermott | Sep 20 2014
While in my Jesuit training, I spent three years teaching high school at Red Cloud Indian School on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in southwest South Dakota. You’ve probably heard of Pine Ridge; the New York Times and Washington Post love to send reporters out for week-long jaunts after which they write about how sad and desperate it is out there. They’re not completely wrong, but they miss an awful lot.
When I started at Red Cloud, there was a great young Jesuit at the helm, Father Bill McKenney. He was from Michigan, he looked like Fred Flintstone (the kids at our school there actually called him that when he used to teach there) and he had endless energy and passion for the people there and our work. A great joy to live with.
Four months into my stay there, Bill died suddenly, age 38, of a massive coronary. No warning, no priors, just dropped dead.
And, if you can believe it, the same thing had happend three years earlier; Assistant Principal Brother Denny Ryan, a Jesuit from Omaha with a wicked sense of humor and an uncanny ability to connect with even the angriest of student, died of a sudden heart attack at age 38, just after Easter.
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