Twenty-five years of high school rallies being held in the New Ulm diocese is a great history to have! On Sunday, April 7, 2002 the rally will mark that milestone. The 9-12th grade youth from the diocese have been gathering with their adult leaders for this yearly celebration of faith with hundreds of others for a long time.

The number of participants has grown over the years. There is usually a group of 550-700 people present for the rally. In 1994 the largest rally ever was held at the Lac Qui Parle Valley High School in the western part of the diocese. That year there were nearly 1,000 participants. It was the year that followed World Youth Day in Denver, Colorado. DANA, the musician who created the theme song for World Youth Day, was our keynote presenter and musician for that day.

The rally has been held in many different high schools in the diocese over the years from Lac Qui Parle near Madison and Appleton to Nicollet and Marshall and a number of schools in between. Moving the location from year to year allows more communities to share in the faith event. It has been a good community builder for many parish communities. As the number has grown over the years, sometimes the schools will not hold the amount of youth so not every school can provide the necessary space. Ideally having two large spaces in the school has worked better than just one large room. Often times high school cafeterias are not able to accommodate 600-700 people at one time. We have learned over the years how to move the large groups and how to involve young people.

There have not been many bands featured at the rallies over the years because of the cost involved and the difficulty of getting well known bands to appear for what may seem like a small event when some of these bands perform for thousands at a time. This year two bands will be featured as part of this big celebration. One band is Scarecrow and Tinmen from Florida. They have performed and shared their ministry at the National Catholic Youth Conference most recently in Indianapolis. Chris Padgett, the lead singer of Scarecrow and Tinmen, will present the keynote message during the day. Chris will be coming to the diocese early to share his ministry with others. On Wednesday, April 3, he will be at St. Raphael, Springfield;on Thursday, April 4, at Cathedral High School and Holy Trinity Middle School, New Ulm; and on Friday, April 5 at Holy Redeemer School, Marshall. The second band is Eclipse which is from Bismarck, North Dakota. They will be sharing music during the rally as well as presenting a concert open to the public for people of all ages on Saturday evening, April 6, at Yellow Medicine East High School,Granite Falls at 7:30 p.m. For more information on that concert contact Larry Loken from St. Andrew parish,Granite Falls, (320) 564-2336.

Past Diocesan Youth Council members are invited to celebrate with the youth. There will be a reunion celebration happening for them on Saturday, April 6, in Granite Falls.

The April 7 rally celebration will include liturgy to be celebrated with Bishop John Nienstedt. The music for the liturgy will be furnished by youth and their leaders from St. Mary parish, Sleepy Eye. The day will conclude with a big dance put on by TK Sound from Minneapolis with D.J., Bill Lage.

It takes lots of people to make a day like this happen and many volunteers look forward to joining in the excitement. The Diocesan Youth Council and parish youth ministers have been a very active part of planning the program.