Br. Jude Roland

William Joseph Klassen was born the son of Leo and Margaret Bearth Klassen on June 9, 1930, in St. Paul, Minnesota. William attended and graduated from Cretin High School in St. Paul and enrolled at Rasmussen Business School in St. Paul. For the next eight years he sought admission to the Brothers but was denied because of his diabetic condition but finally in 1956 he was accepted and on November 20, 1956, he received the habit and religious name of Brother Jude Roland. He graduated from St. Mary's College in Winona, Minnesota, in 1960 and was assigned to Lourdes High School in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, but the following year he was moved to Helias High School in Jefferson City, Missouri. In 1967 he was transferred to La Salle High School in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he remained until 1977, when he was assigned to Christian Brothers College in Memphis, Tennessee. He died of a heart attack while on retreat in Florida. Brother Jude Roland was sixty-four years old, having been a De La Salle Christian Brother for thirty-eight years.