Page 26 - Priorities #73

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By Kathy Gonzalez
“People describe my dad as welcoming and warm,” Kate Molak Hallick said about her father’s reputation, “that he is ageless when it comes to creating connections and once he does, he makes you feel like family.” Kate was the clean-up batter at the January 18 tribute evening honoring Tim Molak as a “builder of community.”
After appetizers and wine in the Rothrock Performing Arts Center lobby, attendees were welcomed into a room aglow with fairy lights and towering flowers. Priory supporters were dressed to celebrate—except for the mob of monks in their traditional black habits. Father John Fortin, a Priory Director and former Head of School, blessed the meal and opened the evening. Emcee and former Board Chair Ray Rothrock welcomed all and recalled Tim’s vision for the campus at their first meeting. “I asked him where the auditorium was. There wasn’t one. But he knew where he’d put it (we are seated tonight in a former parking lot!)” He then invited other Board Chairs and then Trustees to stand, connecting Tim’s past and present partners. “We are all F-O-T,”
he explained, “Friends of Tim.” From there, Trustee Nancy Newman spun stories of Tim’s impact on the Priory, with the focus being how he “set the Benedictine Hospitality Bar very high.” “Thank you for giving us a sense of community that is at the heart of the Priory,” she finished.
To spice things up, drama teacher John Sugden and former Priory choral teacher Tina Paulson crooned their version of “Cabaret” highlighting Tim’s impact. Wearing top hats, they sang, “Where can you go for building a dream? / The answer is clear, you see. / He loves the Priory, my friends. / Molak is Priory!” To the audience’s delight, teachers and staff formed a kickline on stage. Former Board Chair Mike Calbert, in the following unenviable spot, spoke warmly about Tim’s “heart as big as Nebraska” and emphasized that “Tim develops followership easily as people know he truly cares about them.”
An Evening of Tributes to Tim Molak
TRIBUTE