2024 Catholic Schools Week Supplement
A touch of Providence guides principal in his response to students
Married 18 years, after being classmates at Our Lady of Providence High School in Clarksville, Steve and Corinne Beyl continue to be tied to the school as educators. Steve is principal while Corinne is a Spanish teacher. Their son Kramer is a freshman at Providence while Truman is a fourth-grade student at Our Lady of Perpetual Help School in New Albany. (Submitted photo)
By John Shaughnessy
Sixteen years have passed, but Steve Beyl has kept all the cards and notes—physical reminders of the most difficult and defining time of his life.
Just 27 then, Beyl was diagnosed with cancer, five months after his wife Corinne gave birth to their son Kramer.
Two surgeries and a draining round of chemotherapy took a toll on his body. The devastating ordeal also challenged his faith, which showed through in his questioning of God during several conversations with the chaplain of Our Lady of Providence High School in Clarksville, where Beyl worked as a teacher that year—2008.
Yet, amid that hardest time in his life came two strong sources of faith, hope and love, starting with his wife, a Providence classmate whom he began dating in 1999, near the end of their senior year.
“She’s the unsung hero of all of this,” he says. “We had been married three years at the time. On our third anniversary, I was getting chemo.
“She was somehow able to manage a full-time job as a teacher, being a first-time mom and taking care of a husband with cancer. I’m in awe of how she handled all of that.”
He’s also still in awe of the support that the Providence community gave him then. He’s still touched by the Masses that were offered for his recovery. And it’s why he still keeps all the cards and notes from students, their parents and staff members who encouraged him and shared that they were praying for him.
“I tell people that early on, I wasn’t in a good place. But I came around. I could see the beauty in it,” he says.
“I could see the people here cared for me as a person, cared for me as a friend. It meant everything to get that from the school, the community, the parents, the kids. It gave me something to live for—and something to get back for. It left an impact of what it means to work in a Catholic school. Because of all that, I was able to use my faith to help me get through everything.”
‘They have to feel we value them’
Fast forward from 2008 to 2024, a time when Beyl is in his second year as the principal of Providence. Sixteen years may have passed, but the memory of that time in his life guides him in the approach he takes to the 371 students at the school.
“It starts with just knowing the students, that I see them for who they are and where they are,” Beyl says.
“When kids know I know their name—and they know that I know what they do in school and outside school—it breaks down barriers. It lets them initiate conversations with me if there are things they are struggling with or they need to talk about. That’s the goal—making the kids feel comfortable and letting them know that we’re here to help them any way we can. They have to feel we value them first or we’ll never be able to do that.
“We have learned things that you would never suspect that are going on in a student’s life. Students that are struggling with challenges that I would not have been able to handle as a high school student.”
In dealing with those realities that touch every school, Beyl says he and his staff strive to approach them from a foundation of building trust.
“Parents and kids sometimes share sensitive things with me and my team, and they wouldn’t do that if they didn’t trust us. That’s a privilege I don’t take lightly,” he says. “It helps that we are aware of what’s going on for that student. It might be nothing more than that next time you’re in the hallway or the cafeteria and you see them, you make sure they’re doing OK.”
Beyl knows how important that feeling can be. The feeling of family and community that has long been a major part of Providence changed his life.
It’s a life now that includes his marriage of 18 years to Corinne, who is in her 13th year of teaching at Providence; a life that includes 15-year-old Kramer who is in his freshman year at Providence; a life that includes their 10-year-old son Truman, a fourth-grade student at Our Lady of Perpetual Help School in New Albany.
It’s also a life centered around a continuing connection between the Catholic faith and a Catholic education that has shaped him.
“If I wasn’t in a Catholic school, I wouldn’t be able to visit our chapel in the morning to speak to God about whatever is on my mind—whatever challenges I may be facing, whatever challenges the school many be facing, whatever struggles the students may be facing.
“It’s a comfort and a blessing to discuss our faith, to share our faith and make that part of the overall education experience. It’s woven into everything we do here.
“I’m just grateful for what Providence has done for me.” †
