Former superintendent led effort to build new high school
It’s unlikely the students who’ll walk the hallways and sit in the classrooms at New Prague High School ever heard of Robert A. Stepaniak. But he’s the former school district superintendent who led the effort to build the new high school nearly 30 years ago.
Surrounded by his family, Stepaniak passed away Saturday, June 13, after an extended illness. A memorial service was held Monday, June 22, in Faribault. He was 79.
“He loved that high school,” said Maryalice Stepaniak, his wife of 60 years.
In the mid-1990s, New Prague and area communities were growing. Every available educational space was or would be used in the near future. A new high school was needed in the foreseeable future. Working with the board and architects, Bob and the board put together a plan for a new high school south of the middle school at the intersection of NE 12th Street and N Columbus Avenue.
After a campaign led by a Vote Yes Committee, an effort including Stepaniak meeting with community groups to provide information, voters narrowly approved the new $23.1 million high school, 1,410 to 1,334 (51.38% to 49.62%) in the Nov. 7, 1995, election. They also OK’d an operating levy increase, 1,567 to 1,202 (56.6% to 43.4%) but declined a request for $900,000 for technology (53.4% to 47.6%).
Bob Stepaniak’s career was dedicated to providing children the best education possible and leading educators. He arrived in New Prague as an assistant principal from Bloomington in 1976 at the advice of Dan Skjei, a good friend and coach at Bloomington Jefferson. Stepaniak grew up in Mounds View and had also worked in Columbia Heights before the move to Bloomington. Now in his late-20s, the move from west Bloomington to New Prague meant another move for he and Maryalice.
“I had never heard of New Prague,” she said. “I thought, where are we moving to?”
As the assistant principal working in what today is New Prague’s middle school building, his list of daily jobs included the morning announcements. Maryalice recalls Bob’s learning to pronounce Czech names.
“The kids thought it was hysterical the way he pronounced names,” she said.
Bob eventually became...
To see more on this story pick up the June 25, 2026 print edition of The New Prague Times.