By DIANE GASPER-O'BRIEN

dobrien@dailynews.net

The new shepherd of the Diocese of Salina said he feels like he's coming home.

His flock is welcoming him with open arms.

Msgr. Edward Weisenburger, rector of Our Lady of Perpetual Help Cathedral in Oklahoma City, on Monday was named by Pope Benedict XVI the 11th bishop of the Diocese of Salina.

Coincidentally, he succeeds Bishop Paul Coakley, who left Salina in December 2010 to begin his services as archbishop of the Oklahoma City Diocese. Weisenburger, a former Hays resident, is the first bishop in the 125-year history of the diocese to have lived previously in the diocese.

Monday's announcement ended more than a year's wait for a new bishop, so there naturally was ample rejoicing in the diocese.

Maybe none more than in Hays, where Weisenburger spent part of his childhood along with his mother, a native of Catharine, and his siblings.

Weisenburger's father, Edward John Weisenburger, was a pilot in the U.S. Army and served a couple of tours in Vietnam. During those times, his wife, Asella Walters Weisenburger, would bring her four children to Hays to be closer to family in his absence.

Young Edward Weisenburger got to know well some of the children of his mom's best friends, one being Velma Giebler from Hays.

"I am so excited that Eddie is coming back," said Mary Beth Braun, Giebler's daughter who now lives in Manhattan, which is part of the Salina Diocese. "He's 10 days older than me, and my best friend.

"I couldn't believe it when a friend called me and told me to look at the papal website (Monday) morning."

One of Weisenburger's former teachers at St. Joseph Elementary School in Hays had a similar reaction.

"I think it's just great," said Sister Francis Rose Dinkel, who said it's never too late for a milestone event from a former student.

This marks the first student of Dinkel's who has become a bishop.

The 87-year-old Dinkel, who now lives in a nursing facility in Fond du Lac, Wis., was Weisenburger's first-grade teacher at St. Joseph Elementary in the 1960s and remembers that particular student well.

That's because Weisenburger has kept in touch with Dinkel through the years when they would exchange Christmas greetings.

"She was so excited when he became a monseigneur a couple of years ago," said Dinkel's younger sister, Sister Paul Ann Dinkel, who lives in Hays. "When I talked to her on the phone (Monday), she knew right away who he was."

First event as bishop-elect

Weisenburger, 51, was in Salina on Monday for the announcement at diocese headquarters and will return to Oklahoma City until later this spring. His ordination and installation date, which will be at Sacred Heart Cathedral in Salina, has been set for May 1.

In between, Weisenburger said he will return to Kansas every two or three weeks in preparation for his permanent move -- and new assignment -- one which he is looking forward to with great anticipation.

Until then, administrative duties will remain with Father Barry Brinkman, pastor of the Catholic parish in Concordia who has been serving as diocesan administrator for the past year.

"Rev. Brinkman has done a very good job," said Jean Ross from Hays, former president of Thomas More Prep-Marian High School in Hays, one of five Catholic high schools in the diocese. "But there's nothing like having your own true head."

The people of Hays eagerly have been awaiting the arrival of a new bishop because Hays Catholic Schools would like to open a middle school in the soon-to-be-vacated Kennedy Middle School.

"This is really good news for our diocese," said Father Daryl Olmstead, one of the pastoral leaders of the Heartland Parishes of Ellis County.

However, Olmstead, who has met Weisenburger before because his sister was a member of one of Weisenburger's former parishes in Oklahoma, said, "We have to let him get his feet on the ground, because there are so many issues he needs to deal with at this time."

The good news, Olmstead said, is "we will have a shepherd and from what I know of him, he will be a good shepherd."

Life-changing phone call

Weisenburger said it was a typical Monday when he answered his phone in Oklahoma City on Jan. 30. Answering that call changed his life.

The voice on the other end told him it was the Papal Nuncio, the diplomatic representative of the pope, saying Pope Benedict XVI had named Weisenburger the new bishop of the Salina Diocese.

"It was rather startling," said Weisenburger, admitting he was taken aback. "I looked at my phone and saw it was a 202 area code, Washington, and I knew it wasn't a joke."

Weisenburger and his family moved from Hays to Oklahoma when he was in third grade, and he has spent the rest of his life there.

Although he never attended Catholic school again until his seminary days, Weisenburger said he built a strong foundation for his future calling while growing up in "a very devout Catholic family."

He said his parents often had priests over for dinner, "and I had a lot of respect for them."

Weisenburger attended high school in Lawton, Okla., from where he graduated in 1979. He attended seminaries in Missouri and Belgium and was ordained a priest in December 1987.

For the past 15-plus years, Weisenburger has served as vicar general for the Archdiocese of Oklahoma, this past year under Coakley.

"My faith was nurtured in Oklahoma," said Weisenburger, who said he learned much about the Salina Diocese from Coakley.

Although it will be hard to leave his family -- his mother is deceased, but an older sister and his father still live in Oklahoma -- he is looking forward to his new assignment.

"It feels like a homecoming," he said. "It just feels right."