On June 5, 2009, Kevin Conroy was one of seven Cleveland State University alumni to receive a Distinguished Alumnus Award.  He graduated from St. Ed’s in 1972.

Kevin Conroy grew up attending St. Pat’s grade school in West Park.  He lived in a modest one floor, three-bedroom house of eleven.  In his freshman year, tuition was approximately $500.  Kevin played the tuba in the band, and didn’t really think about entering the ministry until late in his high school career.  He attended Maryknoll Seminary, and found his calling at a Notre Dame football game.  As he tells the story, he accidentally ran into the president of Maryknoll at the game.  Kevin did not expect to talk about business at the game, but the head asked him to go to Cambodia as a missionary.  This came as a shock to Kevin, and he asked the president if he could think it over.  As Kevin wandered the campus, he headed to the Grotto to think about his decision.  Then he saw a plaque of a letter from Father Thomas Dooley, who worked in Siam, currently Cambodia.  That was his sign, and he decided to go.

Once Kevin graduated from Maryknoll, he was sent to El Salvador, a popular missionary spot for Northeast Ohio.  His welcoming from one local was not very hospitable.  Kevin had just driven across the border in a brand new Toyota, and decided to stop and get some ice cream.  A man walked up to him, stuck a handgun underneath his armpit, and ordered Kevin to give him the keys.  Kevin was left with no choice, and lost all of his papers along with the truck.  In another account of violence, Kevin was trapped underneath his table as machine guns and mortar fire raged around him at 7 a.m.  In El Salvador, the walls of houses are screens, because it is near the equator, leaving him even more vulnerable to the war outside.  He sat with his ham radio, listening to the other priests call him irresponsible for forgetting the pizza.  However, Kevin was not discouraged.  He continued to touch the lives of others through his missionary work.

After working in El Salvador, Wooster, and Loudenville, Kevin was assigned to Cambodia, a Southeast Asian country near Vietnam.  Cambodia is among the poorest countries in the world.  In 1975, a genocide was committed by a communist guerilla group led by Pol Pot.  This brought Cambodia back to the dark ages, and anyone could be tortured and killed simply because the communists did not like them.  In the end, the three year regime ravaged Cambodia, leaving approximately 1.7 to 2 million people killed.  This event is known as the Killing Fields.  Before they fled, the Khmer Rouge regime had left ten million land mines in order to destroy Cambodia.  

Now in the shambles, Kevin helps HIV positive children and teaches psychology at the Royal University.  Kevin told me a sad story about one little girl.  After each day at the orphanage, the children are each issued one quarter.  One girl always got rid of her quarter, while the other children saved their money.  Kevin asked her what she did with the money, and she took him to a garbage dump.  On top of a giant mound of garbage was a tent, with some other tents camped around the bottom of the mound.  This was where her grandmother lived.  On the flip side of things, Cambodia also has some very nice neighborhoods and beautiful beaches, but poverty overshadows most of the country.

In five years, Kevin came close to death ten times as a missionary. He is friends with Bill Clinton, who started the Clinton foundation for AIDS babies.  Another organization that works with Kevin is the Maddox Foundation, founded by the famous Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.  He has been interviewed by the New York Times for his achievements, and was greeted by a huge ceremony at CSU.  The other recipients of the award were rich and powerful businessmen, but Kevin had something more valuable than any of them.  He has a love for the human race, and spreads Christian values to the darkest corners of the world.  It is men of faith like Kevin Conroy who truly make a difference in this world.