Br. Michael Rice, CSV
When it comes to teachers, coaches, and principals, you might think first of the impact they make on students, but often, extraordinary things happen among these peers, too. For Br. Michael Rice, CSV, his students mean the world to him, but one memorable moment came in his hiring role as an administrator.
In 1994, Br. Michael was principal of Saint Viator High School, alongside president Fr. Charlie Bolser, CSV. When a Spanish teacher suddenly needed to take a medical leave, they needed a replacement quickly. So, Br. Michael placed an ad in the Daily Herald, the newspaper in the northwest suburbs of Chicago.
As Providence would have it, the candidate Br. Michael and Fr. Charlie went on to hire wasn’t much of a newspaper reader. However, after he had moved back home from California to live with his family in Elk Grove Village, he did pick the paper up off the kitchen table one morning and saw the ad placed by his alma mater.
As principal of Saint Viator, Br. Michael hired then-Mr. Dan Lydon in 1994. Here, in 1996, Br. Michael awards him Teacher of the Year, as captured in a yearbook photo.
“Dan (Lydon) has told me the story that he happened to see the ad in the paper that Saint Viator was looking for a Spanish teacher,” Br. Michael said, of the bilingual Saint Viator alumnus he hired for a temporary position that year.
“I really wanted to have a (permanent) spot to offer him, and Fr. Charlie said, ‘let him know that we’ll find a place for him’ – Dan has been good enough to remind me of all this,” Br. Michael joked. “When she said she’d retire, it opened the door for me to tell him that he’d be receiving a contract, and the rest is history,” Br. Michael said.
Of course, Dan Lydon went on to teach and work as an administrator at Saint Viator for many years, and he later became first a Viatorian associate and then entered religious formation, professed vows, and was ordained a priest.
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In this episode of Viatorian Voices, we use our “highlight reel” format to share some great bits of reflection from Br. Michael on his decades of religious life. He’ll take you back to his classroom in senior year of high school, and the Sister of Providence who was his homeroom teacher and Viatorian priest who came to visit – and how they helped him take his first steps into religious life. He’ll bring you behind the scenes of helping to lead schools. And he’ll preview a bit of his current passion project in retirement: writing the untold history of local folks and Catholicism in his hometown, Galesburg, Illinois.
Listen to all of Episode 91 on YouTube, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts.