At This Year's Taste of Transfiguration ... An Ending, and a New Beginning

This year’s Taste of Transfiguration event Friday night will mark an ending, and a beginning.

The retirement of longtime Catholic School principal Ted Zarembski will be celebrated, and a new scholarship fund to help families in need afford the school will be established in his name.

“It makes me feel really good that’s happening, because it will ensure that people who are having a hard time will have some funds available to them,” said Zarembski, who has been principal at the school for 33 years.

The proceeds from selling tickets, silent auction items, raffle tickets and mystery boxes (boxes containing items worth $25 to $50 that can be purchased, sight unseen, for $20) will go primarily toward the fund and a new roof for the church, said one of the event organizers, Sheri Celski.

Taste of Transfiguration brings together area restaurants—like , and —as well as Oakdale’s for a food, wine and beer tasting. For a donation of $25, attendees can eat and drink all they want, said Celski, who is organizing the event along with Barb Schmitz, Cindy Schwartz and other volunteers.

“It’s a lot of food—is what it is,” Celski said.

They typically get about 350 attendees at the event, Celski said, but this year 425 people are already on the guest list, and tickets will also be sold at the door, she said.

This year is special though, in part, because retiring principal Zarembski is the guest of honor.

When Zarembski first started as principal at Transfiguration, the school was located at its former site in Maplewood. It had eight classrooms and an office, and in the lower level, was the church and school cafeteria, said school librarian Jan Weingartz.

The church moved in 1985 and a school addition was built at the site of the new church in 1999, so after that the campus was split, with grades kindergarten through four at the old site, and five through eight at the new site, Weingartz said. Then in 2005, an addition was put on the building at the new campus so that the whole school could be under one roof, she said.

During his years heading the school, Zarembski added the kindergarten level, added Spanish to the curriculum, established the school’s first computer lab, and subsequent labs, and continually tried to keep the school on the cutting edge with technologies like the school’s MIDI lab, where keyboards are hooked up to computers for enhanced music lessons, Weingartz said.

Under Zarembski’s leadership, the school has maintained a family feel, said kindergarten teacher Kathy Bronson.

“I think that he cares about each and every student in the school and I don’t know that that happens in a lot of places,” Bronson said. “He spends a lot of time helping and taking care of those kids that need an extra compliment or need an extra boost or need a little bit of extra help.”

Bronson, who is also retiring this year after more than 20 years at the school, taught kindergarten in a red portable classroom until 2005, when the campuses were consolidated.

“It was kind of like teaching in a giant shoebox,” she said.

Bronson started substitute teaching at the school in the early ‘80s, and then began teaching second grade full time in 1989. She moved to kindergarten in 1999.

As she prepares for retirement, Bronson said, more than anything, she’ll miss the kids.

“They show me some kind of love every day,” she said, “and make me laugh every day and they just totally brighten my spirits.”

If you go:

Taste of Transfiguration starts at 6 p.m. Friday, May 6, at Oakdale's Prom Center. Tasting hours are from 7 to 9 p.m. with music and dancing following. Tickets are $25 per person. Restaurants participating in the tasting include: 5-8 Club, , The Big Steer, , , , Knoke’s Chocolate, Minnesalsa, ShangHai Bistro, Culvers, Dixie’s and .

Editor's note: This article was clarified from its original version. Transfiguration Catholic School was a split campus from 1999 to 2005.