ZELIENOPLE - In the demolition, rebuilding and expansion under way on the grounds of St. Gregory Roman Catholic Church, construction crews found something they couldn't identify: a foundation for a building that didn't show up on any current plans.

"I went right to Joe and asked what it was," said the Rev. Bob Miller of longtime parishioner Joe Boros.

Boros, 90, started first grade at St. Gregory School. He and his wife. Viola, sent their children and a granddaughter there.

He remembers how both he and the church stepped through the years together. He recalls how he grew, from being an 8-year-old "big kid" starting out as a first grader to progressing to the fourth grade, all in one year.

He remembers how the small congregation grew from a couple hundred worshipers at a country church to a couple thousand members, many transplanted from Pittsburgh as Zelienople became a suburb within easy reach of the city.

He also recalled that a commercial building - a wooden, two-story structure - had stood on the spot.

The commercial building was where Catholic students who had graduated from the eighth grade went for vocational training, explained Boros. "Catholics didn't go to high school, they went to the commercial building. I don't know why."

What he also didn't know at the time, was that he would be instrumental in reducing the commercial building to a faint memory.

It was Boros and three other guys named Joe as well, who, in his words, "broke the protestant barrier," in Zelienople.

The four Joes gave the doors of the commercial building a pass, and went to Zelienople High School in order to play football for a school team.

"I wanted to go to high school and play football," said Boros.

As he looks back over the years at the changes in St. Gregory School, in his opinion, it wasn't the expanding enrollment or the addition of classrooms with several renovations that was the most significant shift. "It was the four of us going to Zelienople High School that was the biggest change."

Zipping forward through the decades, as children's organized sports became more important, other students at St. Gregory wanted to play too, but had no facilities in which to do it. St. Gregory teams had to play sports at various venues about town.

Much of the off-site playing will end in the 2005-06 school year. Part of the several million-dollar construction project, slated to be finished in the fall, is a gymnasium/auditorium/social center for the church's congregation.

Part of the new structure rests on the footprint of the commercial building.

When the old, small, wooden church was replaced with the new, big, brick one in the 1960s, the parish still didn't have a place to host wedding receptions, funeral luncheons or school functions that brought the students in

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indergarten through eighth grade together with their parents.

The current renovation, done in two phases and costing in the neighborhood of $4 million, will serve the growing school enrollment and the greater congregation as well.

Several classrooms are being added to the school, as are other ancillary specialty rooms. The new gym and auditorium and social hall with kitchen facilities will be available to the parishioners.

"We had a drive to fund the improvements and the congregations seem to have bought the idea," said Miller.