This text was obtained via automated optical character recognition.
It has not been edited and may therefore contain several errors.

---

Fr. Gmelch proposed Waveland to become a separate parish. Bishop Gunn approved and in 1919 Waveland became a separate parish with Rev. Michael Costello as the first resident pastor. In 1922 Father Gmelch welcomed the Fathers of the Divine Word to Bay St. Louis where they established the St. Augustine Mission House. The Divine Word Fathers took over the black school in 1923 and the parish of St. Rose of Lima was separated from the Parish of Our Lady of the Gulf on August 28, 1926.
The debt of $13,000 for the parish was paid off in a few years because of the fervor and faith of the Catholics in the parish. The present stations of the Cross were erected at a cost of $1,400. The beautiful stained-glass windows costing $14,000 were finally installed as the Church interior was finished.
After this the parish continued to grow under the leadership of many good priests, religious, and laity. In 1960 Our Lady of the Gulf School was founded under the direction of the Sisters of St. Joseph and the work of Msgr. Martin Maloney. It was known as Our Lady of the Gulf School, until 1976, when it became an interparochial and Bay Catholic Elementary School.
On August 10, 2006, Bay Catholic Elementary School became Holy Trinity Elementary School. Because of the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina, St. Clare Elementary School, Waveland was destroyed. Bishop Thomas Rodi, Bishop of Biloxi, recommended that both Bay Catholic and St. Clare Elementary Schools amalgamate under the new title of Holy Trinity Elementary School. The former Bay Catholic also sustained serious damage to its facilities but were able to reopen on October 15, 2005 after the hurricane which struck on August 28, 2005
In 1967, St. Joseph Academy graduated its last class and the school, staffed since its inception by Sisters of St. Joseph, closed its doors. The closure was perpetuated by the declining number of sisters who could not continue to staff the school.
Monsignor Gregory J. Johnson, became pastor of Our Lady of the Gulf in 1969. He saw the need for a new all-girls school and so he set about the task of building a new school to replace St. Joseph Academy. In 1971, a new all-girls high school opened - Our Lady Academy. The school continues today, under the leadership of the Sisters of Mercy and a group of dedicated lay faculty members.
Hurricane Katrina strikes the Mississippi Gulf Coast
Hurricane Katrina was the first Category 5 hurricane of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season. It first made landfall as a Category 1 hurricane just north of Miami, Florida on August 25,
2005, resulting in a dozen deaths in South Florida, spawning several tornadoes which happened not to strike any dwellings.
Katrina strengthened to a 175 m.p.h. storm in the Gulf of Mexico, one of the 5 most powerful ever recorded. It weakened by the time it made landfall again on August 29 along the Central Gulf, as a Category 4 storm. The sheer physical size of
7