The Valley Catholic
Marianist Brother Bill Bolts
receives Chaminade Award
Marianist Brother Bill Bolts, who
lives in the Marianist Community
in Cupertino, recently received the
Chaminade Award from Riordan
High School in San Francisco.
The award, given annually since
1975, honors an individual in the
Riordan community who has advanced the mission of the school.
Recipients include alumni, faculty
and staff, parents and benefactors.
Blessed William Joseph Chaminade founded the Marianists in the
early 1800s in Bordeaux, France.
Marianists have traditionally staffed
Riordan High since the school’s
founding in 1949, the year that Br.
Br. Bill Bolts holds award.
Bolts started high school.
He was in the first graduating Class of 1953 and pursued ministry
in Catholic education, serving at several schools, beginning at Junipero
Serra High School, Gardena, in 1957 where he became its seventh and
youngest principal at age 30.
In accepting the award, Br. Bolts said, “I wish to thank all in the
Riordan Family for this honor. It brings back my memories of coming
down Phelan Avenue in 1949 to the partially completed school with
only one wing.
“I thank Jesus and Mary for directing me in my vocation as a Marianist for 60 years. I thank the Marianists who mentored and inspired
me. I thank my fellow Marianists from Cupertino and Marianist Brothers and Fathers throughout the United States and the world,” he said.
How to not be a missionary
By Tricia Bølle
A few years ago I graduated from Stanford University with a degree
that put Asia in my path. My experience as a grad student in China and
the great need I saw there among college students and young adults
kept pulling