[2] In 1958, Bishop John Dearden, Bishop of Pittsburgh, announced plans for a brand new co-institutional diocesan high school to serve the Chartiers Valley on Morange Road, next to St. Paul Orphanage, which is now St. Paul Seminary.

Canevin High School opened to 435 boys and girls on September 10, 1959; in June 1963, 303 students graduated.

The faculty was made up of priests, five communities of nuns, and a small number of laypeople.

Tuition was free to the students, as long as they were a member of the 21 parishes which made up the Canevin district.

In 1961, the diocese signed a contract with the Immaculate Conception Province of the Order of Friars Minor Conventual to take over the administration and boy's faculty.

They were soon supplanted with more friars from Trenton Catholic High School, which had recently closed.

Under his guidance, Canevin became fully coeducational, and boys and girls began to have classes together.

However, in 1980, he was given the difficult task of saying goodbye to the Franciscans that had served the school for 19 years as they moved on to other duties.