Absent for 50 Years,

Alum Returns as ‘Principal’

By Marie Elena Giossi

Fifty years ago this June, Dr. Guy Sava graduated from St. Mark’s School, Sheepshead Bay.

Late last month, this successful neurosurgeon, devoted husband and father and practicing Catholic returned to his alma mater for the first time since graduation day for an early reunion and the opportunity to serve as Principal for a Day.

“I’m overwhelmed with nostalgia,” Sava said as he walked through the front doors of St. Mark’s School on Monday, April 23. “The school hasn’t changed one bit. I still remember sitting in these classrooms, writing out my conjunctions and prepositions 100 times.”

’twas a Beautiful Morning in Sheepshead Bay April 23, as third- and fourth- graders from St. Mark’s School serenaded, from left, Principal Maryann DeMaso, Dr. Guy Sava, alumnus and their Principal for a Day, and Father Joseph Grimaldi, pastor.

He and his wife, Rose, who now reside in Kentucky, where they’re members of St. Mildred’s Church, Somerset, originally had no intentions of making this mid-April trip to Brooklyn.

When Sava received a letter last October from St. Mark’s School Alumni Association’s executive committee about his upcoming reunion, he was surprised and delighted the school was able to locate him.

“I’ve had no contact with St. Mark’s in 50 years. My whole family moved to Connecticut after I graduated and we never came back,” he said.

The invitation seemed surreal and his schedule was full for that weekend. “Initially, I thought, ‘Are you kidding?” But then one thing led to another and I said to myself, ‘I have to do this’,” he said.

He realized St. Mark’s provided “the basis of my Christian faith,” said Sava, who passed that foundation onto his three children and two grandchildren, all practicing Catholics.

He believes the benefits of a Catholic school education are “unmeasurable. If you don’t get it here, you never will. We have such an anti-God society now. I frequently recall the things I learned here.”

When he responded that he would return to St. Mark’s, another invitation was extended to him to do what every student wishes he could do — be principal for a day.

The Savas arrived in New York for the Alumni Mass, April 21, 5:30 p.m. celebrated by Father Joseph Grimaldi, pastor. There he met Principal Maryann DeMaso and reconnected with former classmates, including Pauline Dalton Antonio, and fellow alumnus Gerald Dalton, both active in the school’s Alumni Association.

He said the church “was even more beautiful” than he remembered and he enjoyed reminiscing with classmates about a simpler time when families “didn’t have a lot” of material things but had a lot of love. He remembers playing stickball, walking along the pier and his short-lived ministry as an altar server.

Vision for the future: St. Mark’s School teacher Carol Donnelly shows Dr. Guy Sava and his wife, Rose, the school science lab and shares her vision for a modernized science center.

“I was thrown off the altar because I ate the priest’s Oreo cookies between Masses,” he said.

Any “Brooklyn accent” he may have had is gone and in its place is an interesting twang that doesn’t denote any specific region but seems to fit in wherever he goes.

After graduating from St. Mark’s, Sava’s family moved to Connecticut, where he attended The Canterbury School, a Catholic boarding school in New Milford. He went on to St. Michael’s College, Vermont, and was accepted at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, for medical school. He first met his wife of 38 years, Rose, a Canadian, in Munich, in 1966. After graduation, Sava lived and worked in Michigan, Ohio, Toronto, Cincinnati, Saudi Arabia, Minnesota and now Kentucky.

What many of his classmates and members of the St. Mark’s community were surprised to learn was that his father, Dr. Anthony Sava, a well-known and loved general surgeon who had an office on East 14th St. and Ave. Y, was “one of the world’s best known investigators of the Shroud (of Turin). That was his life’s work,” Sava said.

His father had the only life-size photographs of the Shroud and from that, Sava said, “he deduced all of the dimensions of Christ. He deduced that Christ was about 5-foot-8, 160 pounds.”

His father, who died in 1989, was a world-renowned expert on the wounds of Christ and the pioneer who asserted that the nail went through Christ’s wrist, not His hand.

“He designed his own crucifix that he gave to (Pope) Pius XII that I believe is still hanging in the Vatican,” said Sava, who recalled a private session his father had with Pius, which he attended.

After catching up with former classmates on Saturday, Sava and his wife toured Manhattan before his big day as principal on Monday.

Principal DeMaso greeted the Savas outside of her office just before 9 a.m. on April 23 and lovingly turned over her 240 students, knowing she would resume her title at the day’s end.

During a special assembly, she announced to students that it was Alumni Week and Dr. Sava would be their Principal for a Day. The following day, another graduate, Joan Keeling McKay, Class of 1964, also had the honor.

Father Grimaldi led the assembly in prayers and the school color guard bore flags for the Pledge of Allegiance.
“It is by far one of the greatest honors to be with you today,” Sava told students, who listened carefully as he shared his life story, explained what a neurosurgeon does and offered his fondest memories of St. Mark’s.

He told students that whatever profession and life path they choose, he wants them to remember the ABCs of life. He read an alphabetical listing of positive ways to live life, starting with “Accept differences between people.” That was one of the greatest life lessons he’s learned, particularly during the three years he worked and attended “clandestine Masses” in Saudi Arabia.

‘Open to Others’

When he reached the letter “O,” he told children to “be open to others.

“We’re all the same. We all have a God whom we worship. We just do it in different ways.”

Eighth-grader Andrea Raniolo, president of the National Junior Honor Society at the school, then presented a plaque of appreciation to Sava.

His wife, Rose, teared up as she watched the younger students serenade her husband. First and second grades sang “Tomorrow” while the third- and fourth-graders rendered “Oh, What a Beautiful Morning.”

“If you receive a strong foundation here,” Father Grimaldi told children, “you have something to build upon. … Dr. Sava is a great witness to that.”

After the assembly, Sava greeted each child as they proceeded to the lunchroom for brunch. As he later visited each classroom, he spoke to the students and offered this advice: “Work really hard. Every single day counts.”

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