Eugene John Gerber

Eugene John Gerber (born April 30, 1931) is an American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as Bishop of Dodge City from 1976 to 1982, and Bishop of Wichita from 1982 to 2001.

Eugene Gerber was born in Kingman, Kansas, to Cornelius and Lena (née Tiesmeyer) Gerber. The fourth of seven children, he has two brothers, Jerome and Larry, and four sisters, Kathleen, Helen, Leola, and Joan. At his baptism on May 1, 1931, the officiating priest predicted to Gerber's father, "Some day this boy will become a priest!" He was raised on a farm in Waterloo, and entered Immaculate Conception Seminary in Conception, Missouri, in 1945. Two years later, he transferred to Kingman High School, where he was known as a Frank Sinatra look-alike and graduated in 1949.

Gerber studied accounting at Wichita State University before returning to Immaculate Conception Seminary. In May 1955, he graduated from St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary in Denver, Colorado, from where he obtained a B.A. in Philosophy (1955), a M.A. in Religious Education (1958), and a Bachelor's in Sacred Theology through the seminary's affiliation with the Catholic University of America. He became a subdeacon and later deacon in 1958.