Father Dave Pleier
When many men decide to become a part of the Knights of Columbus, they confess to knowing almost nothing about the organization, except, perhaps, the memories of the Honor Guard on parade somewhere. It was not quite so with Dave. Having served the Church at St. John the Baptist in Howard, he was quite familiar with the Knights, and remembers them as being a very active Council, with many young men being members. They were always around and were dedicated to their activities. Dave didn't consider joining at that point because he didn't feel he could be very active. It was Randy Barrett who eventually got him to become a part of the Knights at Council 10243.

Dave is originally from Kimberly, and his parents still live in the house in which he grew up as an only child. In his younger years, Dave observed the priests who worked in his parish and always thought they had an important job, and they seemed to enjoy it. That gave him the necessary spark to pursue the priesthood himself and he has served the Church in numerous capacities and soon will celebrate twenty-five years as a priest. In addition to his service for the last several years at St. Bernard, he has also served the Diocese as Vocation Director for seven and a half years and worked at Roncalli High School in Manitowoc as a guidance counselor for eight years. All through his work for the Church in offices, high school and parishes, he has always thought that his calling was to be a parish priest. Still, an average day for him at this point may have numerous responsibilities outside the parish. Besides hospital visits, office work and all the other requirements of parish work, he serves on the Board at Notre Dame Academy and the Diocesan newspaper, the Compass. Dave enjoys the variety of being involved in the events of the lives of people at the parish, everywhere from birth to death and all the points in between. St. Bernard suits his since there are a lot of things going on. He also does a good deal of personal counseling and finds that to be rewarding and satisfying. In addition to all this he serves as Vicar for Vicariate VI, which gives him certain responsibilities toward numerous parishes in and neat the city of Green Bay. One of the jobs of the Vicar is to make a periodic visit to parishes and examine the sacramental records, something he recently did at St. Mary of the Angels parish.

For relaxation he likes to golf, but the great joy of his life seems to be travel. He loves to see different places and mentions two recent trips--one, an occasion to be in Morocco last year and shortly after that a holiday with some family members in Scotland. The bad side of traveling, he notes, is that he just got those trips paid off. We are happy to see that his travels have brought him to St. Bernard and to Council 10243, and we look forward to continuing to benefit from his gift of ministry.

April 2000