BonnerSprings.com

Members of Sacred Heart Catholic School and Worship Center welcomed a special guest at their building dedication Sunday afternoon.

Archbishop Jim Keleher of the Kansas City and Kansas Archdiocese attended mass and helped the students and church members dedicate their new building on Johnson Drive in Shawnee.

The school and church was formerly in Bonner Springs. Church officials began planning the move to Shawnee after the church in Bonner Springs burned down more than four years ago.

Parish Administrator Ray Fowler said the move would have likely been necessary even if the church had not burned.

"We had about 500 members then and now we're in excess of 800," he said.

Many Bonner Springs residents followed the school to its new location. Fowler said he was not certain how many of the school's 260 students were from Bonner Springs, but he guessed it was around 50 percent.

Most of those students, their parents and fellow church members, attended Sunday's dedication ceremony. Before speaking to the group, the Archbishop made his way through the school and blessed each of the classrooms. Following the blessing, he praised church members for having the "faith" to complete such a large project.

The pre-kindergarten through eighth-grade school is approximately 34,000 square feet. According to Fowler, it was built with expansion in mind.

"Our progress, as far as expansion, will depend heavily on how the fundraising goes," he said. "But right now, we're planning to expand in three phases."

He didn't, however, know when the second development phase would begin.

"Right now we're working on strategic planning and trying to determine what direction we want to go next," he said. "This is a new thing for us. We, as a church, hadn't had a debt situation in years."