Kelly: Dr. Annie helps tribes

She grew up in Omaha, became a physician and moved to a big city in the East, thinking she would never again reside in Omaha.

But in 2005 Dr. Anne Hubbard did return, and before long renewed her interest in what could be called "the other Omaha."

As a college student, she had volunteered at Indian reservations. Now, every three weeks, she spends a day mentoring in a fourth-grade classroom at the St. Augustine Indian Mission, a 125-student K-8 school serving families from the Winnebago and Omaha tribes.

It's often said that although the distance between the mostly prosperous city of Omaha and the mostly impoverished Omaha reservation is only 70 miles — the mission at Winnebago, Neb., is another 20 miles north on U.S. Highway 75 — it sometimes feels like a much greater span. Out of sight, out of mind.

But not to Anne Hubbard, whom the kids call "Dr. Annie." She says she loves spending time with the children, learning of their interests and watching them grow. But in a school where 74 percent are from families who live below the poverty line, she could see that many lagged behind in their reading skills.

So in April 2010, she approached the Rev. Dave Korth, the Indian mission's director, with a proposition: She would donate $500,000 to the school for an innovative reading program and for counseling if he could raise another $1.5 million in large donations by Dec. 31, 2011.

Eagerly accepting the challenge, Korth set forth. With board members and Principal Don Blackbird (of the Omaha tribe), St. Augustine took a few months to put in writing how the money would be spent.

In August 2010, Korth began making requests. He soon received a $500,000 pledge from the Ricketts family of Omaha. But it was tough going.

"I started to get more nervous," Father Dave said. "We don't have that many friends of the mission with that capability."

Then came a $500,000 pledge from a donor who wished to remain anonymous. Later, the Siebens Foundation of Minnesota kicked in $250,000.

As Christmas 2011 came and went and the Dec. 31 deadline loomed, the priest stood a quarter-million dollars short of the prescribed match. He had made various requests but received turndowns in early December and on Dec. 20. "I was down to my last straw."

Then on Dec. 28 he received a phone call from a non-Catholic couple in Omaha — the final $250,000 was assured.

"It was such an incredible feeling," Korth said. "All of a sudden on the radio, I heard 'The Hallelujah Chorus.' Of all the songs in the world, I couldn't think of one more appropriate to hear at that moment."

Of the $2 million, about $1.3 million will go to fund additional positions and pay for a K-8 reading program called "The Daily Five Approach to Literary Instruction." The other $700,000 will help fund other needs.

Dr. Hubbard has a personal connection to children with reading problems. Though she completed medical school and has enjoyed a career as a pediatric radiologist, now at Children's Hospital in Omaha, school was made difficult because she has a form of dyslexia.

Her late parents were Dr. Theodore Hubbard, who died in 1995, and Claire Hubbard, a dietitian and philanthropist who died in November. Among the recipients of her donations were the Henry Doorly Zoo and the St. Augustine Mission.

Anne Hubbard lived for 28 years away from Omaha. She returned, she said, after being "burned out on Ivy League academic medicine." She spent many years at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

She is not the first high-achieving woman from a wealthy family to leave Philadelphia and help Indians in Nebraska. Katharine Drexel of Philadelphia, whose friend and spiritual director was Bishop James O'Connor of Omaha, became a nun — and in 1909 founded a place in the rolling hills of northeast Nebraska. Yes, the St. Augustine Indian Mission.

In 2000, she was canonized a saint in the Catholic Church, and a delegation from the St. Augustine mission attended the ceremonies in Rome.

Dr. Hubbard certainly isn't claiming sainthood. She has worked with the fourth-graders since they were in kindergarten and says, "I just love being with the kids and seeing them grow up."

Father Korth, though, says the notion of two women, a century apart, coming to Nebraska from the City of Brotherly Love to help American Indian children seems almost heaven-sent.

"I don't see it as a coincidence," he said. "I call it a God-incidence."

Contact the writer:

402-444-1132, michael.kelly@owh.com

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