“She had a special place in her heart……for the kids that were poor……and I was poor.
      “She had a special place in her heart……for the kids who had no study skills……and I had no study skills.
      “She had a special place in her heart……for this little country bumpkin who wanted always to do the right thing, but had never been encouraged to know how intelligent I really was.
       “She’s the reason I’m an Ursuline sister.”

Sister Pat Rhoten teaches junior high students at Saint John Berchmans Cathedral School in Shreveport, Louisiana.

      Sister Pat Rhoten, an Ursuline Sister of Mount Saint Joseph and a junior high teacher at the Cathedral of Saint John Berchmans School in Shreveport, Louisiana, was talking about Sister Victoria Brohm, principal during her senior year at Lourdes High School in Nebraska City, Nebraska.
       Sister Pat had heard God’s calling to religious life during her senior year at Lourdes and went to Sister Victoria for guidance. She says, “I went into Sister Victoria’s very small office simply to ask if there was a form or something that I would fill out if I was interested, but before I knew it, she flew around that desk, hugging me and saying she just knew I was going to do this. When I walked out of her office I remember thinking ‘this is the right thing to do.’ I knew it the minute I walked out that door.
      “I can literally see the school. I can see what I was wearing. I can see everything, because I knew when I walked out that door that I was meant to be a nun. I knew it, on the spot!”
       The “country bumpkin” who would become an Ursuline sister is a native of Palmyra, Nebraska, the oldest by 10 years of two daughters and three sons born to David and Mildred Rhoten. Her father was a farmer until Sister Pat was in the seventh grade and he left the farm to work as a wholesale meat salesman. Her mother worked for the K.D. Box Company, the Elgin Watch Factory, and she was a telephone operator. “My mother could do just about anything,” Sister Pat fondly recalls. Her mother, 84, now resides in Nebraska City. Her father died of cancer at the age of 48.

Saint John Berchmans Cathedral School principal Jo Cazes says Sister Pat has been a "wonderful addition to the Saint John Berchmans community."

      Sister Pat’s education began in a one-room schoolhouse near Palmyra. She attended grades kindergarten through six in the one-room school and was in the seventh grade there when her family moved to Nebraska City, and she attended Nebraska City Junior High School the rest of that school year. For eighth grade she attended Saint Mary Grade School in Nebraska City, and was taught by Sister Mary Jude Cecil, an Ursuline Sister of Mount Saint Joseph. It was her first experience in a Catholic school, but not her first contact with Mount Saint Joseph Ursulines. When she was growing up in Palmyra, Ursuline sisters would come from Nebraska City each summer to teach summer school at St. Leo, their home parish.
       The following year Sister Pat entered high school at Saint Bernard Academy, located across the street from Saint Mary. The summer after her freshman year, they began tearing down part of the academy and building Lourdes High School. After starting her sophomore year in the remains of the old academy building, Pat and her sophomore classmates moved into the new high school building in December.
       Sister Joseph Miriam Logsdon was Pat’s principal her freshman, sophomore and junior years of high school, Sister Victoria was named principal her senior year. Sister Victoria gave Pat and her classmates a special presentation following their high school graduation. Sister Pat recalls, “She gave each of us a statue of the Blessed Mother and called it our Academy Award because we were the last class to have school in the old academy building.”
       After meeting with Sister Victoria and expressing her desire to become an Ursuline sister, Pat graduated from Lourdes High and then began her novitiate at Mount Saint Joseph on September 8, 1962.

Sister Pat works closely with school finance secretary Geneva Tombrello (left) and school secretary Nancy Miller.

Her education continued at the Mount Saint Joseph Academy and Brescia College.
       At the Mount, two of her classmates were Sister Mary Lois Speaks and Sister Mary Celine Weidenbenner.
       Sister Mary Lois says of her classmate and longtime friend, “Sister Pat has always been uniquely and inimitably herself!  Her personality makes her the center of the gathering no matter the size – whether whole community or just the ‘threesome’ which is now our class. I've admired her aesthetic skills as well as those of organization and efficiency.”
       She continues, “Her personal work ethic is a ‘give all’ stance as she tirelessly applies every effort to complete a task thoroughly, accomplishing much before sometimes nearly collapsing. She's always different, always a friend, and always lovable!”
       Sister Mary Celine says, “Sister Pat is usually upbeat and sees the positive. She encourages the best in you and is organized, organized, organized! But playing the card game Pedro is another matter. I usually make the high bid when we are partners and she really sweats!”
       Sister Pat began her teaching career after one semester of her senior year at Brescia, teaching all subjects to second graders for the second semester at the Flaherty, Kentucky, public school. She then finished her senior year at Brescia and earned her degree that summer.

Sister Pat is joined at a school fundraiser by, in front, Rhonda Feldt, and Milton and Cindy Van Natta. Milton is president of the Cathedral School school board. Rhonda's son, Christian, is one of Sister Pat's eighth-grade students this school year.

      It was back to the classroom that fall, teaching all subjects to third, fourth and fifth graders at Fairfield, but for only one year. The school closed.
       Sister Pat taught all subjects to fourth graders at Saint Francis School in Loretto for one year, then moved on to Saint Thomas More in Paducah for three years, teaching second graders for two years and third graders for one.
       She taught fourth graders at Seven Holy Founders in Saint Louis for two years before moving into administration for the first time. Sister Annalita Lancaster, mother superior at the time, named Sister Pat principal at Saint Pius X School in Owensboro. She served as principal and full-time eighth grade teacher at Saint Pius X for five years.
       After one year teaching freshman religion and sophomore literature at the Mount Saint Joseph Academy and two years as principal and full-time teacher of sixth, seventh and eighth graders at Saint Romuald at Hardinsburg, Sister Pat returned home to Nebraska City.
       She was named principal and sixth-grade teacher at Lourdes Elementary School where, she says, “I taught kids of the boys I dated in high school.” She spent 10 years in Nebraska City, teaching high school algebra her 10th year there.
       After taking a three-month sabbatical to Maggie Valley in North Carolina, Sister Pat returned to work as an assistant to Sister Ruth Gehres, president of Brescia College. She assisted Sister Ruth for two years and then assisted Sister Ruth’s replacement – Sister Vivian Bowles – for sixth months before returning to the classroom.
       Sister Carol Shively was principal at Saint Teresa School in Glennonville and Sacred Heart in Poplar Bluff, Missouri, and was in need of a sixth-grade teacher. She called on Sister Pat, and at the start of the second semester, Sister Pat was teaching sixth graders at Sacred Heart.

Sister Pat and Father Peter Mangum check out one of the silent auction items at the school fundraiser. Father Mangum is pastor of Saint John Berchmans parish.

     Ironically, just over 10 years earlier, when Sister Carol was beginning her teaching career at Saint Romuald School in Hardinsburg, Sister Pat was her principal.
       At the end of the school year, Sister Carol left Glennonville and Poplar Bluff, and Sister Pat took over as principal. In her first year she initiated a junior high program at Sacred Heart.
       Three years later she left Missouri and returned to Mount Saint Joseph as local coordinator for the Ursuline Motherhouse. She spent six years as local coordinator before leaving to return to the classroom. Sister Pat has fond memories of those six years.
       “I do miss the motherhouse sisters,” she says. “Some have kept in contact. Some of them email me. But I miss them a lot. I miss the parties. I used to plan all the parties, the receptions and all that. I miss that. I miss the Liturgical functions at the motherhouse. Nobody celebrated Christmas prettier than we did. Nobody celebrated the Resurrection of Christ any more gloriously than we did. I do miss that.”
       Sister Pat’s love for children took her back into the classroom, all the way to Shreveport, Louisiana, and Saint John Berchmans Cathedral School where she now teaches sixth, seventh and eighth graders. At Shreveport she was reunited with her longtime friend Sister Carol, superintendent of schools for the diocese of Shreveport. Sister Carol says, “Sister Pat brings to her ministry a refreshing way to communicate with middle-school students. She nurtures the children and helps them to develop confidence. Sister Pat is a true Ursuline educator!”

Sister Pat, far right, poses with her fellow teachers and other school employees at the school fundraiser. The fundraiser is a annual event that involves all school personnel.

      Jo Cazes is principal of the Berchmans Cathedral School. She says, “Sister Pat and I came to Shreveport and Saint John’s at the same time. As the new principal, I needed a strong eighth grade teacher to help me with the challenges of an old building in need of major repair, wanting the school to have a true Catholic identity, and wanting to bridge the relationship with the parishioners of St. John’s parish. From the very first time we met, Sister Pat and I knew we could become great friends.”
       Principal Cazes is impressed with Sister Pat’s classroom skills. “She is a strong disciplinarian, but at the same time she develops a relationship with each student that is one of respect and care,” she says. “She not only teaches them religion and reading, but also how to study, manners, how to handle themselves in an interview, and how to talk to adults. Without question, Sister Pat has been a wonderful addition to the Saint John Berchmans community.”
       When eighth grader Mollie VanNatta was voted Student of the Year for all private and parochial schools in Northern Louisiana, she wrote in her Student of the Year biography: My teachers at Saint John's are very important to me. Not only do they help us improve educationally, they also are role models for how to act and function as a member of a larger society. When we first had Sister Pat last year we all thought, "Great, here we go with all the rules." And yes, she does have the strictest classroom policies at St. John's. However, her rules are not the kind that are "because I am the teacher" rules. Her rules are life lessons meant to teach us to respect ourselves and respect others. All my teachers instill in me that for all my individuality, I am still just one member of a larger society.
       The region selection committee asked Mollie to pick her role model, and she replied, "Sister Pat. Sister Pat shows us every day that when you put God first, the rest of the day takes care of itself. She is strict, but fair, serious when she needs to be, and having fun when appropriate."
       Sister Pat says she has enjoyed her return to the classroom. “The magic of teaching is what I learn,” she said when asked about her return to teaching. “In the face of the tragedy of Katrina, in the face of the constant fear of a reccurrence of Katrina, these kids live in a different world than we do. These kids are good, they are kind, they are so wanting to develop a relationship with Jesus Christ.
       “Sometimes when I could get depressed about the place of the United States in the world, I look to my kids...and there is reason for hope.”

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