St. Charles Alumnus Uses Skill Set To Give Back To School, Community

St. Charles Preparatory School Class of 1942 classmates, Mike McGee and Joe Ebert

He didn't realize it at the time, but M.L. "Mike" McGee's days at St. Charles would certainly have an enormous impact on his life. And most of that impact was due to all of the teachers he'd had who would play important roles in his adult life.

Mike—or Mickey, as he was called as a kid—grew up on Remington Road in Bexley. His parents had divorced when he was a toddler, so he was raised by his Aunt Mabel. She had a powerful influence on his life, but she could never be a father figure for him. It’s likely that the priests he encountered in his high school years had a significant influence on him.

One of those figures was Msgr. Joe Cousins, who ran the theater program. Theater never had a really big role in Mike's life, but one of his most prized possessions was a pair of small wooden figures given to him as a wedding present by Msgr. Cousins. Clearly, Mike saw him as caring person to honor and emulate.

Mike's first paying job, while still a student at St. Charles, was as a driver for Father Cullitan, who taught Religion and English. "Spike," as Father Cullitan was called, had never learned to drive, and so Mike became his chauffeur, driving him after school to a community center on St. Claire Avenue that Spike had set up for immigrant children who lived in that neighborhood. Mike also drove Spike to Boston one summer to visit his family—and had his first experience eating lobster.

Mike graduated from St. Charles in 1942. We were at war, and soon he was serving in that war. The Army Air Corps had a series of airbases outside of Foggia near the spur on the boot of Italy from which it attacked the oil fields and refineries around Ploiesti, Romania. Mike was assigned to be an instrument specialist on a B-17 bomber ground crew, working in the afternoons and evenings repairing the instruments on the planes, so they could take off to attack the oil fields the next morning. Their success paid off in the Battle of the Bulge, when the German attack stalled out because of severe fuel shortages.

Mike McGee in his Army uniform

After the Army, Mike returned to Columbus and used his benefits under the G.I. Bill to enroll at Ohio State, majoring in architecture. He graduated in 1950 and took a job with Dan Carmichael, a local architect who he'd interned with. It was while working for Carmichael that he learned how a small business could compete with all the big firms by listening to the client and giving them the best product they could get at a price they could afford. It was a lesson he held to for the rest of his working career.

It was while he was still working for Carmichael that he recieved a phone call from Father Spiers, who taught physics at St. Charles and served as the athletic director. Spiers had a problem that needed to be solved: the St. Charles gym did not meet the new state requirements. He'd heard that Mike was an architect, and asked if he'd be able to design a solution. Working nights and weekends, Mike drew up all the wall sections, details and elevations from a drafting table in his home. He oversaw the construction and, despite a steel shortage due to the Korean War and having to work around the school sports schedule, the project was finished on time, before the 1951 basketball season began.

That St. Charles gym enlargement was the first project he'd done on his own and it paid enough that he could afford to hang out his own shingle. Soon he had other projects—a Mifflin Township fire station, a new hall for Saint Gabriel Parish, some cabins at Camp St. Joseph. Then Father Matt Howard, who had taught math at St. Charles, called to say he needed to enlarge the school at his parish. With that much business coming in, Mike realized he needed a partner, and so was born Emerick & McGee, Architects.

Mike's first really big project also came about with Father Spiers' help. Spiers had been overseeing the construction of Bishop Watterson High School, and Bishop Ready had asked him to take on the same role for the next high school he wanted built. Spiers recommended that Mike be considered for this new job, and so Emerick & McGee ended up with the commission to design Bishop Hartley High School. When the design went out to bid, it came in under budget, which delighted the Bishop immensely.

Mike McGee on an Army base in Italy

Incidentally, that exact same design, but flipped from left to right, was used for the construction of Bishop Ready High School six years later—once again allowing the Diocese to get the best product it could get at a price it could afford.

One of the projects Mike was most proud of was his design for St. Christopher Church on Grandview Avenue. Father Cullitan had become its pastor and wanted Mike to create the design. The previous year, Mike had attended a seminar at Notre Dame—the Liturgical Design for Architects and Artists—that foreshadowed the changes that would soon come about through the Second Vatican Council.

Mike was eager to put the ideas he'd encountered at that seminar into practice, including having a prominent baptistry, as in the early days of the Church. He and another partner, John Albert, designed the church around that concept, with a waterfall embedded in the tall stained glass window at the church's front. They also used steel arches for the roof—the first church in Columbus with such a design—and added a steel bell tower, again a first in the city. Sad to say, those bells first rang shortly after the church was completed, for Father Cullitan's funeral.

Mike had many other design projects he produced, both for the Diocese and for a variety of other clients scattered around Columbus and Central Ohio. His first successful project that ultimately launched his career all began at St. Charles.

After an impressive career and lifetime of generosity, Mike McGee died in January 2021 at the age of 96.

If you’d like to learn more about how you can leave a legacy and make an impact at St. Charles Preparatory School, please contact Dan Tarpy at 614-374-6233 and dtarpy@scprep.org.