Alumnae Profiles

Ty O’Neal Nared ‘12 is back at Marian where she is one year in as the director of belonging, diversity and inclusion. With a dedication to Marian and professional experience in building community, she is up for the challenge of creating space where everyone feels like they belong. 

Don’t tell Alexandra Gasnick Bruening '03 she isn’t good at something. Certainly avoid mentioning she might not be well-suited toward a specific academic discipline. And whatever you do, don’t even imply that girls can’t do math.

That “can’t do” counseling is what paved the way for Bruening to emerge as a metro business leader. Since 2017, she has served as CFO for the The Strawhecker Group (TSG), an Omaha-based company

In 2004, Mrs. Lenhoff assigned senior projects to her Honors Lit Symposium. We had to select a topic, perform empirical research, and report our findings. Thanks to Mr. DiMauro, I had a definition of “empirical” in my Latin notebook. It said that empirical evidence could be proved “by the senses.” 

Taste seemed like the most desirable sense for research, so I produced a report called “The Chemistry of Cookies.” 

A graphic designer at Hudl by day, by night Megan Smith ‘15 uses her talents to support the Marian brand. Over the past three years, she has designed Marian Magazines, curriculum guides, and support materials for both recruitment and student services. The way this magazine looks is Megan’s work.

Laura Frenzer has lived in New York for 30 years. She’s made it there and proven she can make it anywhere, even in the uncertain business of being a woman in theater and film. There’s no guaranteed pathway to success in this industry, yet Laura’s journey and challenges have honed her character for the roles she’d play and the stories she’d produce. She was back home in March for the Omaha Film Festival, making her directorial debut with The Hope Chest has a Secret Drawer. 

Jenny Reynolds Hare ’94 was 34 years old and the mother to three young children when she was diagnosed. She found a lump but assured herself that she was too young to have breast cancer. After an ultrasound and mammogram, she was told to keep an eye on it. Not long after, the lump doubled in size and she discovered another lump in her armpit. Jenny returned to the doctor. Her mammogram had changed – she had three tumors in her breast. 

At just 23 years old, Tehillah Alphonso’s list of accomplishments is enviable. She sang at the GRAMMY®s with Billie Eilish. She sang on the film score for the Disney movie “Encanto.” She sang back-up in an Olivia Rodrigo video. She has been nominated for a  GRAMMY®. A USC graduate, she works as a background vocalist, session musician, songwriter, high school teacher, and arranger in Los Angeles. How did this Marian girl make it in the uber-competitive popular music industry?

If all the high school girls, collegiate women athletes, and adult women who benefitted from the vision, determination, and leadership of Mary Higgins were to give her an ovation, the applause would be deafening. In 2014, she left Creighton and returned to her high school alma mater, Marian High School, to become the first alumna in the school’s 59-year-history to be named president. 

As a high school student, Sarah Fili Kellams had no idea that years later she would be the weekend evening anchor and reporter on Omaha’s KETV NewsWatch 7. She had no interest in journalism. In college, she studied molecular biology and chemistry. After many difficult science classes, Fili decided she needed to find something different. She started an internship at Channel 10/11 in Lincoln, and from there, everything clicked. 

Sarah Mullen is on track to graduate from the School of Medicine at UNMC in 2024, and she will soon decide what residency program she will enter. She recognizes the value of encouraging women to enter the science field and credits STEM programs at Marian for preparing her to explore opportunities in science that eventually led her to pursue a career in medicine. 

When she was 10 years old, Collette Gillaspie '16 caught her first glimpse of a future on Mars. While visiting a nature and science museum during a family road trip, Gillaspie was mesmerized by an exhibit about a Martian habitat, memorizing all the bite-sized facts the information display had to offer and letting her mind imagine what it would be like to visit the red planet. 

Maureen Gotch Vinton ‘78 was honored as the 2021 Alumna of the Year at the Esprit de Corps Banquet. She addressed the class of 2021 at the Senior Breakfast, reflecting on the sentiment “be still.”

In her freshman year of college, Kellyn Daly ‘16 played in the NCAA softball tournament for the University of North Carolina. Daly medically retired her junior year due to an elbow injury. The next year, as she was on track to graduate, she received a breast cancer diagnosis. 

Jana Belitz Rhodes ’91 began dancing when she was only 3 years old. Her love of dance began at a Kitty Lee Dance Studio and by the time she was a senior at Marian, Rhodes received a dance scholarship to Oklahoma City University.

Sarah O’Connor is a hard working, driven woman who lives out the Marian core values every day. After coming to Marian’s open house as a middle schooler, she fell in love with the atmosphere and community that Marian had to offer.

Simone Duryea ’14 attended the United States Air Force Academy and graduated with a Bachelor of Science in management in 2018. She was then was selected to attend Specialized Undergraduate Pilot Training (SUPT). 

As a timid, unsure freshman walking into the halls of Marian in 1996, she did not realize just how much her life would change in the next four years. Nearly 24 years later, Jen Cimino ‘00 lives the changed life she couldn’t have even imagined as a freshman. 

As St. Patrick’s Day approached, Leslie Schwietz ‘99, M.D., worried. She worried about her friends and family in Omaha and the silent threat that was surely sneaking through her hometown. After nearly a month of fighting corona virus on the front line in Seattle, Leslie issued a warning to friends and family via Facebook. It would be shared over 5,000 times, hitting the Marian alumnae page March 17.

“My hope for women is they get over fear and self-doubt to release themselves out into the world. The world needs more feminine-driven ideas,” Omaha native and Wander Puzzle Co. owner Lindsey Fauss Simmonds ’97 said. Simmonds is rounding out her first year of entrepreneurship in the puzzle industry after successfully recognizing gaps in market offerings and following intuitive proddings. 

Rose Ann Shannon ‘69 received the Esprit de Corps Sister Marcella Leadership Award. Rose Ann recently retired from her position as the news director at KETV in Omaha, where she oversaw a staff of 57 and 30 hours of locally produced news each week. She held this position for almost 25 years, rising through the ranks at a time when there were few women in the newsroom. 

Marian alum and attorney Caroline Nelsen Pieper is the definition of empowerment. After Nelsen graduated from Marian in 2010, she attended Boston College to study pre-medicine with a political science major. 

Tara Holeman ’88 has made a business out of doing what’s right. Her work as a corporate responsibility professional has taken her all over the world in a variety of roles.

Kelly Kunkel is a teacher in Colombia, South America. She graduated from Marian in 2008 and empowerment and community, two of Marian’s core values, are still extremely evident in her life. Kunkel’s two main activities at Marian were campus ministry and swimming.

High school can be an up and down roller coaster ride for many, but for Sr. Midge Petersen ‘59, her experience at Marian was just the opposite. Growing up with five brothers as the middle child, Sr. Midge never imagined she would end up at an all-girls school like Marian.

Jen Lukas Landis ‘90 is an artist and creative director who has long used her talents to inspire. This tactic pulled her through some tough times in graduate school, when she was plagued by self-doubt as an artist. What evolved was the Pincurl Girls. 

Owned and operated by Natalie Navis ’02, The Fold, a boutique in Loveland Shopping Center, features womenswear by contemporary designers’ that is not available elsewhere in Omaha. Navis personally chooses items and stocks only one of each size, thus ensuring a completely unique style for patrons.