“Hi, Deacon Dave!”
The children of St. Philip the Apostle Catholic School in Dallas roar with delight in the hallways between classes, reaching out for a hug, a smile, any kind of contact with the man who suddenly seems more rock star than religious figure.
Deacon Dave Obergfell ’70 responds with a deep laugh, kind words, and hugs for nearly every child. Obviously, the feeling of affection is mutual.
Yet for much of the last 40 years, Deacon Dave wasn’t a deacon. His resume runs the gamut from banking to rodeos. He’s owned trucking companies, been the president of a bank, run large finance companies, and sat on boards of corporate liquidations valued in the billions.
“I’ve had just about the craziest career that one could imagine,” Obergfell explains. “I got a wake-up call literally in the middle of the night and went searching for several years to figure out what it was.”
With the help of the Sisters of Charity, he determined that service would play a key role in his calling, left investment banking and was ordained as a deacon in 2006. Along the way he served as a chaplain at Parkland Memorial Hospital, a jail, and at a group home, all of which strengthened his faith.
With a background in turnarounds and fix-ups, he was assigned by the bishop to a Spanish-speaking parish—he doesn’t speak Spanish —with the idea of serving what was left of the English-speakers and to rebuild that community.
Sometimes when the call comes, it doesn’t come in your native tongue.
After a year without much progress, the residing pastor was transferred out. The bishop asked Obergfell to take over in July 2007. Despite the obstacles to communication, Obergfell spent the next two years raising money and fixing things, leading the church out of financial distress.
“People were actually starting to talk to me and sort of like me,” Obergfell says. “It takes time and a lot of patience to work through the language barriers and financial challenges.”
That’s when the bishop moved him to St. Philip’s.
It was a similar story—financial distress, neglected facilities, lack of funds, and low attendance. Obergfell reinvigorated the Spanish-speaking ministries there by making them consistently available. This decision paid off. Many of the people who lived in the parish actually attended services elsewhere because they weren’t being actively pastored or served in Spanish.
People started coming back—attendance was fewer than 500, now it’s more than 2,000—and he began working to get students into the school. Obergfell raised a substantial sum of money to completely remodel the church.
“Fixing things is nice, but you get called into people’s lives,” he says. “The best part is helping families find their way. People call me out of the blue. I married three couples last week. It’s busy and it keeps me on my toes, especially when working with the kids.”
Those children have responded. St. Philip the Apostle Catholic School is K-8 with an enrollment of just more than 150. The 2008 and 2009 classes had a 100 percent high school graduation rate and all of the 2008 graduates went on to college, impressive for a school that is 74 percent Hispanic with little English spoken at home.
“They are good kids who go onto good things,” says Obergfell. “The teachers instill such a love of learning in these kids.”
bergfell sees parallels between Wabash and St. Philip’s. Both schools provide opportunities and serve as a springboard to greater successes. Thinking back to his time on campus, he remembers service with the Young Christian Movement and working with kids in the Haughville section of Indianapolis.
“The ministry was always a part of me, but I left it when I went into the business world,” Obergfell says. “My parents always told me to give back. Wabash reinforced that.”
With myriad experiences under his belt, Obergfell says Wabash gave him the self-assurance to succeed just about anywhere.
“Wabash gave me the confidence to know that I could tackle virtually anything,” says Obergfell, who double-majored in psychology and economics. “I’ve been in all these different industries, and now the ministry, and it’s nice to know that I can learn any subject well enough to drive it forward.”
As much as he’s done for the St. Philip’s community, Obergfell is keenly aware that he’s received so much more benefit from them. He has tried to pay that back, even though health issues now limit his work.
“To help them out, to mentor them, to be there—you can’t put a value on that. I’ve been the presence of the clergy to them and an example that you can give back. You can be a businessman, do all these things—just remember to give back.
“This has been quite a challenge,” Deacon Dave laughs. “It’s a calling I never expected.”