Say Hello to the Honorees

The St. Benedict’s Prep community will honor Peter Wilderotter ’72, Joseph Mosquera, M.D. ’72 and Patricia Flynn H’95 at the 2023 Annual Scholarship Gala on May 11.

The 2023 Annual Scholarship Gala caps a year of community-wide commemorations, from the 50th anniversary of the 1972 closure of St. Benedict’s Prep to its resurrection in 1973. It is altogether fitting that the honorees are all connected to that pivotal time and will be recognized with the Medal of St. Benedict’s for decades of dedicated service to The Hive and the greater community.

Peter Wilderotter ’72 and Joseph Mosquera, M.D. ’72 began St. Benedict’s during its Centennial year, a time of celebration and hope. By February of their senior year, the School announced its closure, which Mr. Wilderotter called shocking. “There was just this sense of profound loss,” he recalled in an interview for St. Benedict’s Sesquicentennial in 2018. Both Gray Bees went on to make tremendous contributions to their respective professions by answering the call to serve others.

When Mr. Wilderotter was a teenager battling Hodgkin’s disease, he pledged to help other people with cancer if he recovered. Recover he did and the Gray Bee kept his promise, raising money for Poughkeepsie’s local cancer board while still a student at Marist College. His first professional position was with the American Cancer Society, and for the next 40 years Mr. Wilderotter became a fundraiser, chief executive and champion for mission-driven organizations that include the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, WNYC and the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation.

A member of the St. Benedict’s Board of Trustees for nearly 19 years, Mr. Wilderotter’s counsel was central to the success of Forever Benedict’s, the campaign that raised more than $108 million for The Hive. He currently serves as board secretary and chairs the Governance Committee.

The medical CV of Dr. Mosquera is extensive and impressive. He is a graduate of Rutgers Medical School, trained at George Washington University and Hackensack University Medical Center, and completed fellowships at the University of Arizona and Harvard Medical School. A noted expert in integrative medicine who has appeared on The Today Show and contributes to Consumer Reports, perhaps most impressive is Dr. Mosquera’s decades of service to Newark. The physician’s practice is based in his childhood home in Down Neck and he provides services to patients from all over the area.

Dr. Mosquera has been there for St. Benedict’s, too, especially during COVID-19, an overwhelming time for medical professionals. His counsel was critical to establishing regular COVID testing protocols and allowed the School to safely open for in-person classes, activities and sports.

Director of Theatre Patricia Flynn H’95 knew a bit about life inside The Hive pre-1972. Her 40-year relationship with St. Benedict’s Prep began in 1969 as a high schooler at Lacordaire Academy when she auditioned for The Man Who Came to Dinner. Ms. Flynn performed in many Drama Guild productions and was devastated by the School’s closing.

A few years later, Fr. Albert Holtz, O.S.B. ’60 got in touch and Ms. Flynn, a student at Albertus Magnus College, taught acting for the first Summer Phase in 1973. After graduating from college and earning an M.F.A. in acting, her performing career got underway, until another call from Fr. Albert brought the actor and director back to The Hive. She revived the Drama Guild in the 1980s and became a teacher, mentor, confidante and friend to generations of students. Many Gray Bee performers and tech crew even became colleagues.

A co-creator of Stage Rage, the Spring Phase course that combines theater and group therapy for kids to work through difficult emotional issues, is a program Ms. Flynn is intensely proud of, and rightly so. The program was showcased at an international conference of Benedictine educators held in Sydney, Australia, in 2019.

The 2023 Annual Scholarship Gala will be held in Dalton Gymnasium. Tickets may be purchased at sbp.org/gala2023