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By Mark J. Cadigan
 The decades drift by, but the sense of connection that Dick
Connolly '61 and Ann Marie Connolly '74 have
with Holy Cross remains passionate.
Ann Marie, a Holy Cross Trustee, is also vice chair of the
Lift High the Cross Campaign Steering Committee and chair
of the Boston Regional Campaign Committee. She and Dick,
who met at a President's Council dinner in the late '70s
and wed in '82, recently committed $500,000 to the
College's fund-raising campaign. In gratitude for the
gift and in recognition of her hard work as a Trustee on
residential life issues, the College will name the main lobby
in the new residence hall after the Connollys.
"We feel so strongly about Jesuit education and, in
particular, Holy Cross, that we want to make a difference," Ann
Marie says.
"Knowing everything I know today, if I could have
my choice of any school in the country, I'd go right
back to Holy Cross," Dick says, citing the school's
value system, academic rigors and the quality of its student
body.
The Connollys, who live in Concord, Mass. with their three
sons, Richard III, Ryan and Kevin, emphasize that the Jesuits
gave them an outstanding education and strengthened their
belief in giving back. "We've been very fortunate," says
Ann Marie. "So we try to not only be supportive financially
of institutions that we care about, but we try to give our
time as well." In addition to serving as a religious
education teacher at St. Bernard's parish, in Concord,
for 15 years, and as a governor and development chair at
the Concord Museum, she is a member of the New England Province
Development Committee, which raises money for New England
apostolates, and the Hestia Fund, a group of women philanthropists
who provide funding for before- and after-school programs
for inner city youth.
Dick, who has also been involved with St. Bernard's,
is a director of the Children's Medical Research Foundation
and former trustee of Babson College, Babson Park, Mass.,
where he earned an M.B.A. in '64. He established a
scholarship in his mother's name at Malden (Mass.)
Catholic High School and has been involved with Catholic
Charities and the Multiple Sclerosis Society. Dick has also
been a member of the board of trustees at the Fenn School
in Concord, his sons' grammar school, for seven years.
Former president and board member of the Francis Ouimet Scholarship
Fund—named after the 20-year-old caddy who won the
U.S. Open in 1913—he has run its amateur golf tournament
for 23 years.
Dick, 62, was a recipient of the Ouimet Scholarship, which
aids students with economic need who have given at least
three years of service to golf. He began caddying at age
eight and worked on the greens from age 15 through graduate
school. Along the way, he developed into an ace golfer who
was captain of the Holy Cross team for two years. Though
he did not become the professional golfer he once envisioned,
he continued to play, passing on his love of the sport to
his sons and becoming friends with Arnold Palmer.
"He's not as good as his press clippings," claims
Dick. "He's better." Palmer is also one
of Dick's accounts at UBS Paine Webber, Inc., where
he has been a stockbroker in the Boston office since 1973.
Dick grew up in Woburn, Mass., the son of Richard, who worked
for B.F. Goodrich, and Ruth, who raised Dick and his brother,
Robert, and worked part time in a dry cleaning establishment
run by Dick's uncle.
Ann Marie, 50, grew up in Providence, R. I., the daughter
of Helen, a homemaker, and Edward Reilly, a Narragansett
Electric lineman. She has two brothers, Eddie '76 and
Kevin, and a sister, Helen Boyle. Transferring to Holy Cross
from Emmanuel College in '72, she was among the first
wave of young women to make the school coeducational. As
an incoming third-year student, she was asked to be a resident
assistant for the first class of freshman women; she was
then appointed head R.A. of Mulledy, the College's
first co-ed residential dorm. "It was a great leadership
opportunity," she recalls, noting that associate dean
of students, Marilyn Boucher (now Butler), was "a wonderful
mentor, an incredible professional and a phenomenal human
being."
Ann Marie earned her M.Ed. from Boston University in '76
and worked in the school's Admissions Office for several
years. She is now a senior consultant with Maguire Associates
of Bedford, Mass., which does market research for colleges
and universities.
Both Ann Marie and Dick are confident that the Lift High
the Cross effort will achieve its $175 million goal. "I
think that for so many of us, Holy Cross has made a difference
in our lives—personally, spiritually, professionally," says
Ann Marie. "And I think that it's a privilege
to give back to a school that's given us all so much."
Paul E. Kandarian is a free-lance journalist from Taunton,
Mass.
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