Nicholas J. Schrup

TH: You are a leader in the capital campaign drive for Holy Family Catholic Schools. Talk a bit about how that's going.
NS: I think it's a very important campaign. We've been fortunate to have two great systems over many years. Things are certainly more challenging today - more than they were yesterday - for some more than others, but the parochial system has served us well. For those that did engage in it through at least grade school experience, at least back when I was growing up, it was great for me. For the faith-based view of education that some of us, many of us share, it's an important element for us and I think for the community as a whole. There's a lot of kids in the system, albeit smaller today than it was years ago and for a variety of reasons. But there are still thousands of kids involved in the parochial system. It plays a very, very, very important role in their lives and those that are in that and they're in it for that reason. There's no doubt that education, lower, higher and middle is extremely expensive but it's worth the investment to maintain the parochial system, build upon the system. It has great opportunity for the future, in my mind, as it kind of creates different models for the new middle school a nd different approaches that it has to take to kind of create a platform for the future, if you will. We're very excited about it, actually. Very, very pleased with the ready acceptance of the need out there for funding the future of the middle school and the improvement of the Wahlert High School, which is definitely needed. The campaign is approximately $7.5 million (now $8 million) toward the initial $10 million goal. Just couldn't be happier that it's being received to the degree that it has. I ask the question, what would you do without it (Holy Family)? Sit back and ponder that one for a few moments - if it weren't there tomorrow, that would be an interesting thought, given the history of the parochial system in our community if it were not there. It just would not be Dubuque. It wouldn't seem right. It wouldn't be right.

TH: A lot of people who will read this interview are very acquainted and familiar friends with your late father, Nick. How would you compare your with your father's?
NS: Jeez, I don't know. To compare anybody to another person's style is difficult at best. To compare yourself to your father is even more difficult. In my dad's case, it's a little even more uniquely different because he had a style all his own. I can't imagine even trying to replicate it. I guess one does pick up certain traits by natural rights, but you don't know that they exist until people maybe occasionally tell you that. It might be slight at best. But I like to think that, both myself and the rest of his family, are proud to have at least picked up some of his better attributes, I hope. Probably some of his not-so-better attributes. He had a few of those; we all do. And they're kind of famous in some camps. He was a really unique guy. He was really a smart, committed guy. When he was into something, he was totally committed to it. He was relentless in making sure that whatever he said he was going to do or thought was the best thing to be done was going to get done and done right. That was the best thing I always noticed. He always had high expectations for people around him. And he always made sure that they were always able to get what they needed to get to those levels of expectations. Not in a hard sort of way. Just very good set of supporting people in either a quiet or not so quiet way. Very support guy. That's the outward dad. Now, as a dad, it was little different thing. There were expectations that were set a little bit higher, there was a little bit higher of standards that he expected a lot, what it is you decide to do. He didn't necessarily tell you what to do, but whatever you decide to do, he wanted you to do it well. And he guided you pretty well. You knew if you got off track he would make sure you kind of stayed on track. He was really a great guy. I miss him. He was really a great force in a lot of lives. Certainly a force in a lot of lives in the community, too.

TH: Somewhere along the line, you wound up in California. How did that come about?
NS: That one was interesting. It ended up because of my older brother, John, had gone out there to college and ended up staying there and working at Bank of America. I used to visit him during summer breaks and really liked the area. I got out of college a semester early - half-way through my senior year - and I had this down time because I was going to go to graduate school at Loyola New Orleans the following fall, so I had this extra four or five months. I was going to go hang out in California for that semester. My dad saw that a little differently. As a way around that, my brother suggested that there was a school in San Francisco that he was looking at going to, a graduate school, Golden Gate University. He said, "Why don't you go there, take a couple of classes and then transfer them over to Loyola and everybody will be happy?" So I ended up doing that, with some blessing. I ended up getting a job out there and was there for about 11 years.

TH: You met Carrie out there, too, didn't you?
NS: I sure did.

TH: How did you two meet?
NS: We met through a friend where we lived at that time, Menlo Park, Calif., about halfway between San Francisco and San Jose. She was working at the U.S. Geological Survey. Just through a friend who lived in that area and met her. Typical story. It was a couple of times to meet and eventually started going out.

TH: I'm sure you talked about your hometown. Do you recall what you told Carrie about Dubuque at that time (early to mid-1980s)?
NS: Well, I told her about Dubuque, everything we loved about it. She had traveled quite a bit with her family over the years, so she had an opportunity to come through the Midwest. But, let's be frank. She's a very, very, very California person, die-hard California person, and all in the right ways. But we had a couple of experiences, one in particular, where we were able to come out and I was able to show Carrie around a little bit. The first trip back here to Iowa was in late October-early November for an Iowa football game. If I'd been smarter, I would have done a September game. It was a little rugged. It was a day where it sleeted and iced, so it was a pretty interesting experience. I've got to give her a lot of credit for, A, sticking it out, and B, ultimately even considering moving here after that experience. It was an interesting weekend. TH: How hard a sell was it to convince Carrie, a California girl, to move to Dubuque?
NS: Well, you know, she's really a very special person. She truly is. Anybody that would commit to go to somebody else's turf is really - one has to be awfully fortunate. Particularly considering the exchange. Sonoma County, Calif., which is absolutely gorgeous, to Dubuque, Iowa, which is also gorgeous, but there's some interesting trade-offs. Weather being one of them, for certain. And family, which is the A- No. 1. Her whole family is out there. That's a significant trade-off from one family to another, so it says a lot for Carrie. But you ask if there was a lot of selling in the process. Not necessarily. It was not a selling process by any stretch. It was a well-thought-out gesture on her behalf as much as it was a selling by anybody else.