Capital Improvements

Upcycling Dad

Former Fathers’ Club President Contributes to Magnificat through Passion for Historical Restoration &Motorcycles

When Megan Kelly ’13 —daughter of board member Linda Loesch Kelly ’77 and John Kelly—was a freshman at Magnificat, John was recruited to run bingo at Night in Blue. “Because of that, I was deemed a lifesaver by Sr. Carol Anne Smith,” says John, who later became the chair of Night in Blue and eventually president of the Fathers’ Club. While driving Megan to and from school each day during her freshman year, John recalled noticing that the "Magnificat" signs on Hilliard Boulevard and Wagar Road were weathered and difficult to read. With a background in architecture and commercial real estate, John says he has “spent hours, days, weeks, months, years sitting in meetings talking about signage.” And so, the next time he saw Sr. Carol Anne Smith, he suggested that school leadership consider sprucing up these important Magnificat identifiers, which he volunteered to facilitate. Before the new signs were to be mounted on the Hillard and Wagar stone structure (installed in 1968), John took it upon himself to drive up to campus to remove the old letters so they would not be thrown away. As a child of parents who had lived through the Depression, John understood the value of holding onto and restoring items others may just throw away. The handmade stainless steel letters were put in a box that sat untouched in John’s garage for the next five years until he shared that he still had the letters with Vice President of Enrollment Julie Sims Gibbons ’80. Together, they hatched a plan to restore one set of the letters to the finish of the original sign and mount it on a blue aluminum panel. John then facilitated the creation of the cool new shiny sign that has brightened Magnificat’s main entryway since 2017. Then, in January of 2022, John had the second set of old letters restored, painted navy blue as they had been for many years, and mounted on white acrylic. This sign is now hanging in a prominent spot on the north wall of the HM Center.

In addition to contributing to the beautification of campus with the restoration of these historic signs, John has been an instrumental supporter of the mechanical engineering partnership between Magnificat and Motogo. When he was growing up in Holdrege, Nebraska, he got on a motorcycle for the first time at the age of ten in the back alley of his childhood home.

“My older brother let me try his friend’s Honda Mini Trail, which I drove down the alley and immediately wrecked,” he recalls. “From that moment on, I was hooked.”

Fifty-three years later, John has achieved a personal goal of riding a motorcycle—typically one of his own, but sometimes a rental—in each of the 50 states, and he restores and rebuilds old bikes as a hobby. And so, during the advent of Magnificat’s partnership with Motogo in 2018, John donated a 1976 Honda 350 to the program. It was the first bike to be rolled into the former convent garage that has been converted into a fully functioning motorcycle workshop for Magnificat’s aspiring mechanical engineers. John’s spouse alumna Linda has given generously of her time and talent in service to the Magnificat board of directors since 2015, and, in 2021, she concluded an illustrious career in finance with KeyBank, where she retired as Senior Vice President of Investment Research. Megan Kelly works in market development for Petco, and she will soon relocate from San Francisco to San Diego, California.

John and Megan with the bike from Fuel Cleveland 2017 motorcycle show.

“We have an unfailing belief in single-sex, Catholic education. When these young women make up their minds to do something, there is absolutely nothing that can stand in their way, and it has been incredible to see that.”

When asked why Linda and John find it so important to continue supporting Magnificat nearly 10 years after Megan graduated, John said, “We have an unfailing belief in single-sex, Catholic education. When these young women make up their minds to do something, there is absolutely nothing that can stand in their way, and it has been incredible to see that. You want to support places that promote and foster challenges that propel people into their adult life, and, clearly, Magnificat is the perfect place to do that.”

Recently, John acquired a widely publicized Honda 350 that was converted into a chopper and featured on the cover of Street Chopper Magazine in 1970. He hopes to bring it to the Motogo garage in the near future to give students a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to dismantle and rebuild the engine of this historically significant motorcycle. -John Kelly