Membership Director
Jim Kowalski
If you’re looking to judge the commitment to our order of Jim Kowalski, September’s Knight of the Month, simply check the man’s odometer. He’s usually on the road three or four nights a week fulfilling his duties as assistant diocesan deputy for membership. From Bonham south to Corsicana, Greenville west to Grand Prairie. “In six months’ time, I’ve visited all 52 councils,” Jim reported (while driving home from Ennis one night). He has been Assistant Dallas Diocesan Deputy for two years and Membership Director for about five.
Jim helped start Council 8157 in 1982, served as Grand Knight in 1983-84 and ’88-89 and was voted Knight of the Year both here (in 1988) and at his original council, 3593 in Oak Cliff. His resume includes 11 years as a KofC Field Agent. “I’ve been everything except a district deputy,” he said, “and that’s too much politics.”
Jim, his sister and his mother boarded a train in 1949 in Milwaukee and moved to Dallas. He graduated from Forest Avenue High School in 1952 and then began his working career.
The Catholic faith has been at the center of the Kowalski’s relationship since the very beginning. Lillian was among the founding members of St. E’s Mothers Club, and Jim was a co-founder of the Dallas Parochial Soccer League. Jim became a Knight in 1962 at the urging of his new father-in-law when they were parishioners at St. Elizabeth of Hungary in Oak Cliff. Jim Kowalski and Lillian Skotak met in 1960 at a get-together of a Catholic singles group called the Dallas Vincentian Club, they were married two years later on Thanksgiving Day 1962. Why that specific date? He can’t recall: “I guess we were thankful,” he said with a laugh.
Jim and Lillian usually attend Holy Spirit’s 9 a.m. Mass, with Jim overseeing the hospitality ministers. They have three sons, one daughter and six grandchildren.