Br. Hugh Columban

Richard Andrew Dahmen was born one of two children to Andrew and Daisy Reamer Dahmen on April 21, 1928, in McGregor, Iowa. Richard attended Marquette Public Grade School and High School from 1933 to his graduation in 1945. He entered the U.S. Marine Corps and served from August of 1945 to October of 1946. Entering the Milwaukee School of Engineering in 1947 he received his B.S. in Electronic Engineering in 1950. Four years later, on March 3, 1953, he entered the novitiate at Glencoe, Missouri, where he received the habit on May 14, 1953, and the religious name of Brother Hugh Columban. The following year he studied at St. Mary's College in Winona, Minnesota. Upon completion he was assigned at Christian Brothers High School in Memphis, Tennessee, and remained there until 1959 when he was transferred to Xavier High School in Appleton, Wisconsin. Also in 1959, he received an M.A. from Memphis State University. He continued his studies at St. Louis University, DePaul University, Boston College, Wichita State University, and St. Mary's College of California. It was at St. Mary's College of California that he earned his second M.A. degree. Brother Hugh Columban was assigned to St. George High School in Evanston, Illinois, in 1961 and Bishop Carroll High School in 1966. He was assigned again to CBHS in Memphis in 1968 and transferred to the Winona District in 1971, being assigned at that time to Beckman High School in Dyersville, Iowa. He continued teaching mathematics, especially for slower students at Grace High School in Fridley, Minnesota in 1975 and at De La Salle High School in Minneapolis in 1978. His tour of duty also includes: Religious Education at Prairie Du Chien, Wisconsin, and at Stevens Point in Wisconsin; Cretin-Hamline Community in St. Paul, Minnesota, 1989-1991 and 1994-1995; Upton (1991-1993), Casper (1993-1994), and Bancroft (1995-1996), Wyoming. He had returned to his first teaching assignment in 1996 when he retired at Christian Brothers High School Community in Memphis, Tennessee. He died there suddenly on August 1, 1997, of heart failure. He was sixty-nine years old and had been a De La Salle Christian Brother for forty-four years.