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Our Story

- Since 1982, our parish has striven actively to extend a warm welcome to all who come here looking for a place of worship and a faith community to call home. Currently, STA has over 2,300 registered families and continues to grow as a dynamic faith-filled parish in the Diocese of Austin. Our mission is to welcome everyone as a member of our family, engage the whole family, and serve together as a family. We are the parish for families to meet Christ. We hope you will join us!
- In the summer of 1982, the Very Reverend Albert A. Palermo led a group of parishioners from St. Mary’s Church in College Station to look at 10 acres on the east side of State Highway 6 as a potential site for a new parish. The field trip was a culmination of efforts to relieve crowding at St. Mary’s (whose primary focus is serving the students of Texas A&M University) as well as accommodating a growing population to the south of College Station. These efforts came to fruition on October 19 of that year when Rev. Patrick J. Zurek, who was serving at St. Joseph’s in Bryan, was directed to begin a new territorial parish in the area to serve the families of south Bryan and College Station.
  
  From that point, plans moved quickly and within a month, St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Parish was officially formed on November 11, 1982, with approximately 200 families from existing parishes. Willing parishioners held a planning meeting on November 17 at the KC Hall in Bryan and the first Mass of the parish was celebrated on November 28, in the ballroom of the Aggieland Inn (later re-named Ramada Inn) on Texas Avenue. A few months later, on January 16, 1983, Masses were moved to the College Hills Elementary School gymnasium.
- Groundbreaking at the 10-acre site took place on August 28, 1983. Phase I construction, including the rectory, multi-purpose building, educational building, and office building, began in the fall of 1983. The move into the rectory took place in August of 1984 and the move into the office, multipurpose and educational buildings took place on October 25, 1984. The first Mass was celebrated in the multi-purpose facility (later named Zurek Hall) on October 28, 1984. Within two years, the parish included 400 families.
  
  Phase II construction of the Church Assembly began in 1989 and was completed in mid-1990. Eucharist was celebrated in the new Church for the first time on March 25, 1990. The church was dedicated on September 9, 1990, at a 10:30 am Mass followed by an open house. His Eminence James Cardinal Hickey, Archbishop of Washington D.C., Bishop of Austin John E. McCarthy, and Rev. Patrick J. Zurek were the celebrants. The following year a covered entryway and bell tower were completed. At that time, the parish had grown to approximately 600 families.
- The church facilities grew again in 2004 when the Parish Activity Center (PAC) with its new religious education wing and the Adoration Chapel was completed in September and November, respectively. The Child Development Center was started in this new building in 2004. Today it serves nearly 150 children from 6 weeks of age through Pre-Kindergarten.
  
  The founding pastor, Rev. Patrick Zurek was ordained Bishop in the diocese of San Antonio, and now is the Bishop of the Diocese of Amarillo. Rev. Michael Mulvey was appointed Pastor of St. Thomas Aquinas in July 1992. Rev. Sam Hose, who was also ordained to the priesthood by Bishop McCarthy at St. Thomas Aquinas and was appointed Pastor in 1995. Rev. Dean Wilhelm was appointed Pastor in July 1997; Rev. Michael O’Connor in 2005; Rev. Fr. Edwin Kagoo in July 2011, and the Rev. Albert Laforet, Jr. in July 2016.
- Today, St. Thomas Aquinas serves over 2,300 families and is known to be a joy-filled, vibrant, and diverse parish whose mission is to "welcome everyone as a member of our family, engage the whole family, and serve together as a family." While the number of families and buildings has grown, one tradition has stayed the same. One of the first parish-wide activities was “Septemberfest” at Central Park in College Station in September of 1984. Since then, the parishioners of St. Thomas Aquinas have gathered each fall to enjoy the blessings of their parish and open its hospitality to the surrounding community. Today, that celebration, now called “AquinasFest,” is held every September on the parish grounds.