Print Issue: October 10, 2002

Memorial Garden, Boy's Middle School Blessed In Dedication To Former Pinecrest Headmaster

CUMMING - Under a brilliant late summer sky, members of the Pinecrest Academy community celebrated the life of their late headmaster, Brian A. Tierney, Ph.D. They came to dedicate a special memorial garden in his name, and to bless the grounds of an anticipated middle school for boys. Named headmaster of the school in 1998, Tierney died in 2001 of a sudden heart attack. He was 56 years old. He was remembered as a "humble and joyous man" by school president Bill Guilfoil.

A Mass was celebrated in the gymnasium by Msgr. R. Donald Kiernan, and concelebrated by Msgr. Hugh Marren, Father James Larson, LC, and Father Scott Reilly, LC.

(L-r) Father Scott Reilly, LC, Bill Guilfoil, Pinecrest Academy president, and Msgr. Hugh Marren, pastor of St. Benedict's, Duluth, reflect on the life of Brian Tierney, Ph.D., as Msgr. R. Donald Kiernan blesses the new memorial garden at the school. Altar servers Patrick Di Rito and Rick Thompson assist Msgr. Kiernan.

With the image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus as the garden's focal point, the garden pathway is shaped like a monstrance, its center filled with flowers. It was designed and built by Pinecrest parent Jason Creech and landscaped by his company, Creech Landscaping.

After celebrating the Mass, Msgr. Kiernan, vicar general of the archdiocese, blessed the garden as Pinecrest Academy alumnus Mike McCool played the bagpipes.

After the blessing, everyone then followed Msgr. Kiernan over to a large clearing of freshly turned red clay. The clearing was the site for the school's all-boy middle school. "We're making history today, and we pray that God will bring this construction to successful completion," Msgr. Kiernan said as he sprinkled holy water on the site.

The dedication and blessing of the garden and the boys school site was also a way of marking the 10th year of the private Catholic school's operation. When it opened in an 80-year-old school building in Crabapple, Guilfoil recalled helping clean and paint the bathrooms in the old school facility. Since then, the school has grown - and moved - to the facilities at Msgr. Kiernan's parish, All Saints Church, Dunwoody, from 1995-98, before opening in the fall of 1998 at its present site.