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Corpus Christi Celebrates Our Graduates – Emily Boeve
Wife. Mom. Farmer. Friend.
Emily is all of these things. However, she was initially the youngest of Pat and Linda Mitchell’s four children. While growing up in Zeeland on the family farm, Emily learned the basics of the Faith and what it means to be Catholic. Her Catholic faith journey started at St. Francis de Sales Parish in her early years, attending Sunday school and watching her parents be a part of the parish leadership. Going to church on Sunday was always a family priority. During her elementary school days, the Mitchell Family changed their membership to Our Lady of the Lake where she completed all of her sacraments. In 2001 Emily enrolled in Corpus Christi Catholic School. Emily balanced her schoolwork with working on the family farm; where cattle, sheep and dairy goats were also a focus. With all the activities, Emily found being Catholic was always a priority. Sundays brought chores and church.
In her 4 years at CCCS, she played volleyball and soccer as well as taking part in Science Olympiad, Geography Bees, Lego Robotics, Drama, and Band. After 8th grade, Emily attended Zeeland East High School. Keeping in touch with other friends that also graduated from CCCS, which made it easier to succeed in a large school. While at ZEHS, she met her future husband; Matt Boeve. Although they went their separate ways, we will have more on that later…
During Emily’s ZEHS sophomore year, the family started to attend the new Grand Valley State University parish, St. Luke. There Emily was able to take her love of music and bring it to Mass. Emily sang in the choir, played a little piano, and was a cantor. After high school, Emily went to Michigan State University. Her Catholic Faith remained a focus for her while she studied Animal Sciences and minored in Meat Processing. Emily found the campus church, St. John’s, and it became a cornerstone of her week. St. John’s really gave Emily that new sense of belonging. Joining the choir was really the best push forward in bringing Mass to life for Emily. Being able to praise and participate through song helped to strengthen and keep her faith strong while away from her home parish. A new sense of belonging happened when she was able to see and talk about her faith with her friends. Coming from an area where being Catholic was the minority, it was an amazing thing to see how many people she met that were practicing Catholics.
…Matt and Emily crossed paths once again. During the last 2 years at MSU, Emily and Matt had their own faith journey to figure out. Matt was not Catholic and they knew that if they were to get married, they would need to decide whether they would raise their children Catholic. Many meetings with our priests and pastors helped them through the discussions for their next steps. After Emily graduated from MSU 2013, Emily and Matt were married at St. Luke University Parish. Matt graduated from medical school in 2016 and took a residency in Grand Rapids. They then moved back home to Zeeland. While in Zeeland, they welcomed their first baby, Felicity.
After lots of thinking and praying, the Boeve’s decided in 2019 to start Shamrock Meats. Matt completed his residency in the spring of 2020 and pursued private practice, forming Zeeland Family Medicine, PC. In May, 2022 they welcomed their second child James. With Emily leading Shamrock Meats, where she gets to bring that farm to fork experience to life for people, and Dr. Boeve starting Zeeland Family Medicine, they are a busy family. They maintain their close relationship to God through active participation at St. Lukes and enrolled Felicity at Corpus Christi Catholic School to reinforce what they do as a family on a regular basis.
CCCS welcomes the Boeve family “back” to our school family!
Kiely King
Corpus Christi School is grateful to have Kiely King, an alumna of Corpus Christi Catholic School, giving back to her school! Kiely, who has returned to join the Corpus Christi Board of Education and the Development Committee, whole heartedly believes that her experiences at the school helped to shape her into the person that she is today.
Kiely graduated from Corpus Christi with the eighth grade class of 2003, then attended Zeeland East High School. She received her undergraduate degree from the University of Notre Dame and then continued her studies at Notre Dame Law School.
Kiely feels that a school should be the place where students practice the skills that they will use later in their life, both in college but also beyond that, and attending Corpus Christi definitely provided her a great environment for this.
“Academically, the education I received at Corpus Christi more than prepared me for High School honors and AP classes. The extracurricular activities that I took part in at Corpus Christi prepared me for ones that I would do in High School and College, including choir and drama club. Corpus Christi service projects build a history of community involvement and volunteerism that colleges value as much as a student’s grades. And through faith-based activities such as religion classes, Mass, and Stations of the Cross, attending Corpus Christi familiarizes students with living the Catholic faith on a daily basis.”
The skills that Kiely practiced at Corpus Christi – through the quality academics, the commitment to community service, the daily living of the Catholic faith, and even through the extracurriculars, are all skills that she was able to carry with her beyond high school, beyond higher education, and into her adult life as a lawyer at a local non-profit immigration advocacy organization and as a parishioner of St. Francis de Sales. She does not think that she could have practiced the full range of these skills better in any other educational setting than she did at Corpus Christi.
Thank you for giving back to your community Kiely! We are very proud to have you as an alumna representative of Corpus Christi School!
Tess Monahan
Tess graduated from CCCS in 2014 and attended West Ottawa HS where her favorite subjects included math and choir. Throughout high school Tess was actively involved in Model UN, theatre, soccer, and served as class vice-president and president respectively in her sophomore/junior years. She has received numerous awards including National Honor Society, Outstanding Young Composer Award, and vocal solo first division ratings at state.
Tess believes that her Corpus Christi years really prepared her for her high school career and feels CCCS helped her achieve a stronger academic background than many of her incoming peers at WO. This fall Tess will be attending the University Of Notre Dame to study International Economics. Her long term goal is to work and volunteer abroad either with a non-profit or international business.
Thinking about her faith journey, Tess knows CCCS helped build a strong base and relationship with the Lord, and she has missed having this integrated in her high school curriculum. She’s very excited to be returning to Catholic school in the fall at Notre Dame.
Her closing thought and advice: “Spend time doing the things you love and to explore your interests. I do miss Corpus Christi! I am so glad that I had the opportunity to go there and am very proud to represent our school. :)”
Congratulations Tess – Your CCCS family is very proud of you!