As you scan the arena, there are a number of important looking people sporting red staff shirts and headsets…And then there are those with headsets and no red staff shirts, because their uniform says it all: Don’t stand on your chair, no beach balls during Mass, and pass the baskets at the appropriate times.  Those are the religious sisters from the Carmelites of the Divine Heart of Jesus and the Sisters of St. Francis of the Martyr St. George.

Some people may know Sr. M. Karolyn, one of the “Martyrs” from her days of teaching high school near Kansas City, others may remember her epic lip sync battle with Fr. Brian Fallon at GenLife2017. She is excited to be at her lucky 13^th Steubenville Youth Conference and this weekend you might see her ushering in section CCC (No, not Catechism of the Catholic Church, although she is a nerd when it comes to the Catechism!).

If you want to know the true definition of relationship goals, meet Denny and Tammy Handley. With this being Tammy’s 9th Steubenville Conference and Denny’s 30th, they absolutely make this weekend a significant part of their lives.

Aside from eating Chick-fil-A in the PSU and jamming to Adam Bitter playing their favorite songs, Closer and Light the Fire, they love seeing many teens’ hearts being touched by God in different ways throughout the years.

Denny’s favorite Steuby moment thus far was in 2014 when they began to do a Call to Baptism during the Vocations Call at the end of the weekend. The following year, a girl named Rebecca Wood stood up at this moment and by 2016, she was baptized into the Catholic Church.

“Are you kidding?  What’s Stupidville?”  After her initial confusion learning about Steubenville conferences, youth minister Carolyn Anch decided to take a group of about 12 teens with her.  Thirteen years later, that group of 12 has grown to 124 and the youth group has become a family.

Without youth ministers, Steubenville wouldn’t be possible.  They are the ones to continue the work when everyone goes home on Sunday and the ones who have been doing prep work for months leading up to the conference.  Carolyn is one of those rockstar youth ministers.

To be featured as one of our “Humans of SteubySTL”, you don’t necessarily need to be a human. Just ask Cardboard Pope Francis. We’d like to introduce you to another interesting character that we found at this conference, Steuby Baby Groot.

There’s one problem that arises pretty quickly in interviewing Steuby Baby Groot – he has a fairly limited vocabulary.  He is only capable of saying three words: “I am Groot.”  Unless, of course, you press a button on his back, allowing him to sing, “I Want You Back” by the Jackson 5.  So, he is tough to interview.  Fortunately, there were two girls from his parish ready to translate for us.

If you’ve ever been in the bookstore at Steubenville, you’ve probably noticed Francie Gosser. She is one of the many bookstore volunteers; this year will be her fourth time working there. Francie is a lifelong member of St. Peter’s Parish in Kirkwood, Missouri.

She loves working in the Steubenville bookstore as a cashier. She gets to encourage today’s teens to be fearless in their Catholic identity. Francie says it is a grace from God to help the teenagers in the checkout line of the bookstore as a form of evangelization. She loves being able to compliment a teenage girl on the choice of religious jewelry that she picked out, or encourage a teenage guy to buy a book he is interested in. Francie has many favorite items in the bookstore; she loves everything from certain t-shirts, to religious bracelets and medals, to the foam kneeling pads (which you better buy quickly, before they run out!)