PRAIRIE DU CHIEN, Wis. -- Things are happening, or soon will be, at Hoffman Hall in Prairie du Chien.

Prairie du Chien Mayor Karl Steiner recently told the Prairie du Chien City Council that alumni from Campion Jesuit High School are willing to "take care of Hoffman Hall." It is the only building from the former Catholic residential school that is not now part of a Wisconsin state prison.

Steiner said that Campion alumni will pay for a civil engineer to decide what needs to be done to preserve the hall.

Funds from alumni of Campion and St. Mary's Academy will allow the establishment of a Catholic Education Center, including a Campion Hall of Fame. The Campion archives have been kept at Marquette University in Milwaukee since the high school closed, and many area residents have Campion memorabilia.

Campion was founded as Campion College of the Sacred Heart in 1880. The college division closed in 1925 and the facility was known as Campion High School. Hoffman Hall was built in 1963. Enrollment reached its peak in the 1964-65 school year, with 598 students.

During the school's run, it helped educate more than 15,000 young men. Campion closed its doors on May 24, 1975. Hoffman Hall was sold on Aug. 15, 1978, to the Wisconsin Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church for $2.8 million.

The list of notable Campion graduates includes former Wisconsin governor and ambassador to Mexico Patrick Lucey; Congressman Leo J. Ryan, killed at the Jonestown mass suicide; William McDonough, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York; David Doyle, who played Bosley in the hit TV series "Charlie's Angels"; and George Wendt, who played Norm in the TV sitcom "Cheers."