STA Names 2022 Distinguished Alumna

September 24, 2022

The ability to integrate one’s faith into one’s career, family and everyday activities can be extraordinary, but isn’t always easily accomplished. Rosalie (Sullivan, ’82) Buergler has managed to combine her professional life as a nurse and her passion for mission work into a beautiful and very busy life.

After raising her two sons, Greg and Joe Buergler, Rosalie returned to her career in nursing. She has served as an ER nurse and a home health director, and currently is an occupational nurse. During this time, she also has acted as a lay member for the Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity (SOLT), a missionary community comprising priests, brothers, religious sisters and lay members that tends to the areas of deepest apostolic need around the world. Rosalie currently is General Lay Servant for SOLT, which has been active since 1958, and in Kansas City for nearly 60 years.

Rosalie (Sullivan, ’82) Buergler, STA’s 2022 Distinguished Alumna

In serving the SOLT community, Rosalie coordinates the formation of lay members, directs mission assignments of SOLT laity, and helps direct the overall movement of this community throughout the U.S. and in 10 countries around the world. She uses her professional background to assist specifically with health care needs including care for dying members, televisits for wound care, and televisits to remote and other locations in Mexico. In addition to catechesis and evangelization, Rosalie works to strengthen SOLT lay vocations that assist the poor, the hungry, and the disenfranchised in society.

Rosalie has been exposed to mission work all her life. Her parents were among the first lay missionaries with SOLT. They began their missionary life in rural New Mexico, then moved to Kansas City and began working with the SOLT community in urban areas during the civil rights movement. Rosalie cites St. Teresa’s Academy for fostering the love of all God’s people with its commitment to educating students from all cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds.

Rosalie states, “Our upbringing and education has a tremendous impact on our lives. It can strengthen us and equip us to know and follow God’s plan in our lives. We are meant to be in relationship with each person of the Trinity, our mother Mary and others, all at the same time. It is exciting to experience all the opportunities God provides for that to happen in our lives.”

Colleagues and friends of Rosalie are effusive in their praise of her belief in the importance of bringing faith into her everyday life, her profession as a nurse, and as the General Lay Servant of SOLT.

“No matter what the role or responsibility, Rosalie has relentlessly demonstrated faithfulness to the call, a quiet resolve to high standards and quality outcomes; and a heart of compassion, care and concern for those she seeks to serve,” says Althea F. Jones, one of six individuals to nominate Rosalie for the award.

Rosalie will be recognized during the Reunion Mass at 4:30 p.m. on Saturday, October 8, 2022, in the Music & Arts Auditorium on the STA campus. All are welcome to attend the Mass. Alumnae who are interested in attending the reunion after Mass are asked to RSVP by October 1.

The Distinguished Alumna Award, introduced in 2009, formally recognizes an alumna who has positively and substantially influenced her profession, her community, or issues affecting society at large. 

See a list of previous Distinguished Alumna Award winners under the “Distinguished Alumna” dropdown.