"Yeah, there were lots of challenges. We just faced them and went on. I never, never doubted the high school would be built. That's not my personality to give up. When it would be built was the issue. I mean, we just had to deal with so many things and people."

So reports Msgr. Patrick Gallagher, pastor of Mary Star of the Sea Parish for 23 years.

Challenges over the last 13 years ranged from beating out many other initial bidders for the U.S. Navy land on Taper Avenue to getting approval on a seemingly endless number of city and county permits. Other matters included dealing with the Los Angeles Archdiocese's building, property, finance and school departments all at once, and taking into account the habitat of the endangered Blue Butterfly plus the welfare of nesting hawks.

And that doesn't even include arranging for loans of $8 million from the Knights of Columbus and more than $2 million from the archdiocese, plus monitoring the progress of Del Amo Construction, Inc.

Back in late 1994, with enrollment at Mary Star of the Sea High School down to 256 students, a development group was organized to look at new ideas to increase enrollment, raise resources and, in essence, save the then-43-year-old struggling secondary school. Early on, one attractive option was to purchase the available land on the Navy reservation and build a new modern educational plant there.

"We didn't know if it would continue to be a parish school or archdiocesan school or inter-community school," recalls Msgr. Gallagher.

But when other parishes expressed little interest, it became all-too-apparent that Mary Star would have to shoulder the burden. So the seaside parish went ahead tapping donors from its own mostly working- and middle-class database, along with alumni and parents of students currently going to the school.

"It was a long complicated process, which took many turns until where it is today," says the 66-year-old pastor. "But there was always a core committee. And the steering committee would meet with the architects and engineers. Then after we actually started, we had a building committee and also a campaign committee and finance committee. All of these groups were working. They never ceased.

"What it originally intended to cost more than doubled to $22 million," he noted. "So we decided to build the school in phases instead of all at once. And what students just moved into is the first phase, but we hope to have two more phases."

The veteran pastor can't say enough about the steadfast support, from 1994 right up to today, of the members of his 5,500-family parish, many of whom never had a child who went to Mary Star of the Sea High School. But he also praises the entire, tight-knit community of San Pedro for wanting a new private school that offered a top-notch moral as well as educational formation to today's teenagers.

"Our parishioners have been constantly asked, week after week, to support the school - and they have responded," he says. "They just keep giving, even when the new high school was only a concept, and over all the years when there was only the promise of a building.

"It depended on the parish if the school was going to be built or not," he points out. "The parishioners are the ones who have been patient and the ones who have built it. Basically, they trusted us because we promised to build it. And you can see today, we actually did it.

"And I think they will continue to be supportive as we move into future phases, including the building of an on-campus chapel, library and athletic fields."

- R. W. Dellinger