Photo by Edwin Perez ‘18| A student looks onto the Brophy Graphic in Brophy Hall on October 19th, 2017. The Jesuit mural was a surprise to both Brophy students and faculty.
By Camden Andl ’19
THE ROUNDUP
Anyone walking through Brophy Hall since late September is bound to have noticed a big change: a mural of past and present Brophy Jesuits was affixed to the walls of the stairwell connecting the first and second floors of Brophy Hall.
Assistant to the President Mrs. Terri Tierney was one of the heads of this project.
After Brophy President Mrs. Adria Renke was approached by a faculty alumni member following the death of the late Father Harry “Dutch” Olivier S.J., both Mrs. Renke and Mrs. Tierney decided that action needed to be taken to honor not only Fr. Olivier, but all of Brophy’s past Jesuits as well.
Mrs. Tierney said that the project was much more difficult and time-intensive than one might think.
“There isn’t a list in a book somewhere that lists the Jesuits that have been here, so I decided to approach it by looking through every yearbook from the beginning of time,” Mrs. Tierney said. “We have one book from the early years of Brophy, so I combed through those pages, and pulled out every name I could possibly find.”
However, Mrs. Tierney was not the only person involved in this project. She credited much of the work to recent alumni Andrew Kish ’17 as well as Sophomore Frankie Pastor Rivera ’20, for going through and finding all the photos that appear on the finished mural.
The team worked alongside Brophy graduate Jesse Roman ’03 of Prisma Graphics, who, along with his team, picked up and scanned all the photos from the yearbooks, and designed the actual graphic.
“It really wasn’t my vision as far as ‘this is what I want it to look like,’ I had no idea what they would do with all we had found,” Mrs. Tierney said. “We said we wanted a mural of all those Jesuit faces and a grid with all their names, but Prisma Graphics were the ones who really figured how to make it go up that wall.”
Although this project took over a year, on and off, to create, the team kept it a secret from Brophy students, as well as many staff members.
Father Juan Pablo Marrufo del Toro, S.J., Brophy priest and teacher, said that even he, who is featured on the wall, had no idea it was being created.
“It was very surprising for me to see it, I did not know it was coming,” Fr. del Toro said. “But when I saw it, it was a very nice surprise. It was very great to see, it’s a great tribute to our history and to the Jesuits who have worked here for sometimes months, sometimes years.”
Fr. del Toro also explained how he saw the mural almost as a family tree.
“They are all my brothers—some of them are alive, some of them have gone home to Jesus, and some of them are working somewhere else right now,” Fr. del Toro said. “But it is like a family picture for me as we are bound by this brotherhood of the Society of Jesus.”
Fr. del Toro also explained that when he saw it being put up, he did not think he himself would even appear on the wall.
“I like it a lot, I hope it stays, and I hope we can keep it clean and in shape, keep updating it as we hope more Jesuits will come up and serve this place, so hopefully we can add more pictures, dates, and names to it as the years progress,” Fr. del Toro said.
