Utah Teacher of the Year is a member of Our Lady of Lourdes

Intermountain Catholic

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Mary Jane Morris (left), a parishioner at Our Lady of Lourdes, was named Utah Teacher of the Year. She is shown with Utah State Superintendent of Public Instruction Larry Shumway. Photo by Tina Morandy, Utah State Office of Education

SALT LAKE CITY — Mary Jane Morris has a master’s degree, and ESL endorsement, and 33 years as a teacher. At Salt Lake’s Northwest Middle School, she teaches reading and a program that encourages students to prepare for college, but those qualifications are only part of the reason she was selected as the Utah Teacher of the Year by the State Office of Education.

"Mary Jane Morris’ background in reading and in working with getting new populations to prepare themselves for, and enroll in, higher education is remarkable," said Mark Peterson, public relations director at the Utah State Office of Education and a member of the Teacher of the Year selection committee. "But as good as she looks on paper, she’s even better in person. Her personality, dedication and enthusiasm for teaching and students lit up her interview with the selection committee."

Those same personal qualities come through as a parishioner at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church in Salt Lake City. "She’s very enthusiastic, very intelligent, and she contributes a lot with her presence, particularly with her spirituality and her cheerfulness," said Father J.J. Schwall, Our Lady of Lourdes pastor. "She’s one of those people, when you look at her, you say, ‘Gosh, I’d like to be like she is.’ She’s just a wonderful example of a person who’s in love with God and in love with God’s people."

Morris was raised in a religiously diverse household. Her mother was a cradle Catholic and her father was Baptist. Her brother was raised Catholic while she was raised Baptist, although she grew up being familiar with the practices of the Catholic Church. While attending college at the University of Georgia, she went to the Newman Center.

"I was a practicing non-Catholic, basically," she said. Then, six years ago, she went through the RCIA program. "I wanted to claim my Catholic faith."

While an initiate, she was very impressed by Sister Jeremiah, a Benedictine sister who was in charge of Our Lady of Lourdes’ RCIA at the time. "We have a few people in life that we meet that we’re forever different after having met that person. For me, that person was Sister Jeremiah," Morris said.

The RCIA program allowed her "to discover how very important my faith is to me and to be practicing that faith every day," she added.

Now initiated in the faith, Morris has helped with the RCIA program for the past couple years and also is a communion minister. "That is my most favorite thing of the week to do," she said. "The Eucharist to me is the essential piece of being Catholic. It’s that sense of communion with God at that very moment in time, and being able to share that with God’s people and having that sense of being right here with God."

Morris’ mother, who has lived with her for the past six years, recently was diagnosed with terminal cancer. "It’s a real honor to get to be a caregiver to my mom, and to give back to her," Morris said. "It’s a very important part of my life, and to go through this journey of diagnosis with cancer is just amazing. There’s so much that we’ve learned and grown through."

What they’ve learned, she said, is that there’s a need to speak and live from the heart, and that time becomes very precious. Also, she said, "We can’t change the outcome but we certainly can change the journey from here to there and how we go through this together as a family."

Among the prizes she received with the Teacher of the Year award was a $10,000 check, which she is considering spending on a pilgrimage to Ireland with Father Patrick Carley of St. Joseph the Worker Parish. "It’s almost like he invites his friends to come home to his family in his hometown. And I thought, ‘That’s how I want to see Ireland.’ So my plan is to call up Father Carley and say, ‘Put my name on that list to go to Ireland."