12/05/2025
MCS lost a champion this week. A champion of our faith and a champion of our school.
In its inaugural year, 1961, Mansfield Christian School named Chet Weigle as its first administrator. Chet led MCS through its infancy as he pioneered many of the school’s early programs, introduced curriculum, created extracurricular activities, hired key employees, and coached a number of the athletic teams. Chet’s unwavering conviction that children must be trained to love God, lead others to serve Him, and understand the world as God intended was essential to the success and longevity of this ministry. He spent thousands of hours in the classrooms, in the offices, and behind the scenes, committing his energies to our mission and our families.
From the outset, Chet’s conviction and courageous leadership was built into the fabric of MCS, and it has characterized our school to this day. Nowhere is this made clearer than in the powerful words he spoke at the dedication ceremony for the new high school in 1969:
With each of you gathered here this night, will go the memory of a cherished dream fulfilled – the completion of Mansfield Christian High School. To say this victory came through the efforts of generous friends and parents or the sacrificial service of a dedicated staff would be humanly accurate, but divinely inadequate. For it was God who moved us; His spirit who filled us; and His blessed Son who loved us. This service tonight is not to glorify a building or our past accomplishments, but rather to commit our lives and resources to a larger task. Jesus said, no man having put his hand to the plow and looking back is fit for the kingdom of God. We must go on to greater things than this occasion celebrates. My greatest fear for Mansfield Christian is that we might rest at the end of this task. We have hundreds of children waiting to be trained; trained to love God and trained to lead others to love Him. Is there a greater ministry? There is certainly none more effectual and none more costly! God help us to lose our fears in faith; to commit our energies to this great end and to pay the price!
Thank you, Lord, for calling Chet Weigle to MCS. His influence was vast, and his legacy endures. May God comfort and strengthen Carol and his family.
Dr. Cy Smith, Superintendent