Minnesota Carmelite hermits building large chapel to make room for new vocations

Friday, May. 31, 2024

DRAPER — For the last 15 years Stephanie Sawyer has loved teaching math to Juan Diego Catholic High School students.

“I tell the kids, and sometimes they laugh at me, that I can’t believe people pay me to do this job,” Sawyer said. “I don’t feel like I’ve ever worked a day since I’ve been here. And I don’t mean that I’m lazy. I just mean that it doesn’t feel like work because I like what I do. It’s just been a blessing in my life. I’m just so happy I got to be a part of it.”

Sawyer grew up in Pennsylvania and moved to Utah from North Carolina in 1993 when her first husband, a Marine, was stationed here. Having obtained a Bachelor of Science and Math from the College of William and Mary in Virginia, Sawyer applied at Judge Memorial Catholic High School for a teaching position. While the school had no openings, Jim Yerkovich, a vice principal and basketball coach at the school at that time, asked her to substitute teach AP Calculus for him for two weeks.

Not long after, Yerkovich called Sawyer.  “‘You are the first sub I’ve ever had that I did not have to reteach everything,’ he told me,” Sawyer recalled, adding that he then asked her to teach AP calculus at Judge the next year.

Sawyer taught at Judge until 2002, then she moved back east to be closer to her parents. In 2007 she returned to Utah and in 2009 was offered a position at Juan Diego. 

During her years at Juan Diego Sawyer has felt embraced by the school community, she said, particularly after her second husband, Sunny, passed away three years ago.

“I don’t think I would have made it except for the support of this community,” she said. “The kids all wrote me little sympathy notes. Here’s the big memory in this age of digital communication: these Juan Diego kids are letter-writing fools. They will write you the kindest notes for Teacher Appreciation Week, Catholic Schools Week or what I got — sympathy cards.”

Despite these precious experiences, these days Sawyer is feeling the pull of other responsibilities: she is leaving Utah for eastern Tennessee, where she will care for her elderly parents, she said. Her three children are grown and making their own way in the world, Sawyer said. Killian is in the Navy and is stationed in San Diego. Clare, a Juan Diego graduate, is finishing up a degree at Portland State University, and Conor, also a Juan Diego graduate, will stay in Utah for work. 

So “it’s that time in my life where I’ve got to be there for the parents now,” Sawyer said. “We just celebrated my dad’s 80th birthday last year, and it’s just time for me to get back home closer to my parents.” 

As she makes the journey across the country, along with her precious box of student letters, Sawyer will carry with her the warmth of the love she experienced at Juan Diego, she said. “It’s the feeling, the vibe of Juan Diego. Juan Diego is a community – parents, students, teachers, everybody. It’s just amazing; there’s so much love.”

After she gets settled in Tennessee, Sawyer hopes to plant a large garden and learn how to preserve its harvest, she said. “I guess I’m flirting with the whole self-sufficiency thing just to see if I can.”

Sawyer also has one major goal she hopes to achieve in the next five years: to walk the Camino de Santiago.