Inducted in 2011
Prep Teacher (1966-1989)
Father of a Prep Graduate

Induction Video

During his more than twenty years on the Prep faculty, Alfred J. Mehmel Jr. made his mark on his students with an artistic, unorthodox and exuberant classroom style, endearing himself to all who knew him with his love of teaching, his love for students, friends and family, and his agapeic love for all humanity.

Born in 1943 to Alfred Mehmel Sr. and Margaret Miller Mehmel, a firefighter and a homemaker, Al was a Bronx native. In fact, he lived at the same address his whole life. He attended Holy Family Grammar School and Cardinal Hayes High School and graduated from Fordham University. After his time at the university, Mehmel spent a year as a Capuchin Franciscan before discerning that his life’s calling lay elsewhere. That calling would come in 1966 when he was invited to join the Prep faculty to teach German and religious studies. His mentor on the faculty was fellow Hall of Honor member Rudolph Hanish, who had taught German at the Prep since 1932.

As recalled by Dimitri Cavalli, Class of 1990, Mehmel always brought “laughter, love, and a little gentle mayhem with him.” And to paraphrase Larry Curran, Class of 1977, Director of Alumni Engagement, who grew up in Al’s neighborhood and knew him from the time he was born: Al Mehmel always had a joke, a kind word, or a smile that could confirm one’s faith in the goodness of the world.

While it is true that roars of laughter were often heard emanating from his classroom, it is also true that Mehmel had a teaching style that made his students want to learn. He taught with rigor, insistent on hard work and correct pronunciation. Each year on the first day of class, students were made to memorize the first sentence in their textbook: Deutsch ist wirklich nicht sehr schwer!, which translates as “German really isn’t that difficult!” Though numerous students would dispute this assertion, they would certainly all agree that their geliebten Lehrer, beloved teacher, was an engaging, warm and encouraging mentor to generations of Prepsters.

In addition to his work in the Modern Language Department, All also taught theology, including a popular senior elective called The Playboy Philosophy. That title may have drawn some students in, but they quickly found out that the course’s intention was to dispute, not endorse, that value system.

It has been said that Al Mehmel was as much a teacher as an experience, and there are a thousand stories to prove this, like the afternoons Al would dress in his Lederhosen and demonstrate the traditional Schuhplattler dance in one of the classrooms adjoining the Game Room in Hughes Hall. The audience was always left roaring with laughter. With Mehmel, the ridiculous was the sublime.

Al was very active in the life of the Prep. He directed many of the school’s dramatic productions and moderated the German Club and German Choir, as well as the Asian Club, and ran the annual Christmas Toy Drive — the Prep never had a more enthusiastic goodwill ambassador. He led the student body in singing "The Ram" at rallies and in the stands at games, he always made time to attend alumni functions, and even played Santa Claus for the annual Mothers’ Club Christmas Party — a role that suited both his joviality and his stature.

Mehmel was an ordained deacon in the Archdiocese of New York, and he assisted at mass at the Prep as well as at Holy Family, his home parish. At Holy Family he was also director of music and choir director. At the time of his death, Al was pursuing a doctorate in theology at New York University.

The ultimate Al Mehmel story may be the one told by former student Ted Markowitz, Class of 1970, who was returning from an event with Al and a group of Prepsters one bitter-cold evening when they stopped at a local diner for some coffee and something to eat. As they entered the restaurant, they found a man begging. As Markowitz related, Al brought the man in, bought him a meal, gave him his own gloves, and drove around the Bronx late into the night looking for a shelter where the man could sleep — a true
"Man for Others."  In Ted’s estimation, that night, Al clearly demonstrated what a Christ-like figure should be: ”funny, understanding of people’s foibles, having a few of his own, but most of all, willing to give anything of himself to aid his fellow man.”

After assisting at mass that very morning, Deacon Mehmel suffered a heart attack and died on Father’s Day, 1989. Two thousand mourners attended his funeral at Holy Family.

Along with his wife, Patricia Turley Mehmel, Al left behind a 14-year-old son, Alfred III, Class of 1992, and a 12-year-old daughter, Katherine.

During his long tenure at the Prep Alfred J. Mehmel had picked the same yearbook quote every year: Amor ordinem nescit — “Love knows no rules.”