By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
When Marcy St. John taught French at Bowling Green High School she instructed her students in more than verb conjugations and vocabulary.
She wanted them to learn to be able took at the world from an international perspective, said fellow teacher Jennifer Dever.
St. John even served as advisor to an Amnesty International chapter that had students petition governments on behalf of prisoners of conscience.
Dever was introducing St. John as the recipient of the Drum Major for Peace Award given by Bowling Green Human Relations Commission for dedication to promoting a just and inclusive community.
The award was given Friday as part of the 30th annual tribute to Dr, Martin Luther King Jr. (A second story on Christina Lunceford’s keynote address will be posted later.)
Dever, who teaches English and serves as secretary for the commission, was a new teacher when she first met St. John. They monitored a large study hall together. Though St. John was unaware of it, she became Dever’s mentor.
“I wanted to be like her,” Dever said. “She served as my counselor and coach, helping me through the most difficult years of my teaching.”
The Rev. Mary Jane Saunders, St. John’s friend and her pastor at the First Presbyterian Church, said: “For many years Marcy has provided a strong example of what it means not just to talk the talk, but walk the walk, when it comes to loving God and loving and serving her neighbors.”
Dever said: “In her personal life, Marcy shows a commitment to promoting the values of justice and inclusion. She has a generosity of spirit and a love for her community. In the decisions she makes in spending her time and resources, Marcy shows an amazing commitment to living a life in service to others.”
In accepting her award, St. John cited the words of Marian Wright Edelman, the founder of the Children’s Defense Fund. “Service is the rent we pay for being. It is the very purpose of life, and not something you do in your spare time.”
Earlier St. John referred to the lyrics “You’ve Got to be Carefully Taught,” the Rodgers and Hammerstein song from “South Pacific.”
“You’ve got to be taught to hate and fear,” she recited. “You’ve got to be carefully taught.”
In an interview following the ceremonies, St. John said, her education shaped her life of service.
“I’ve just been pretty fortunate, very privileged through no merit of my own,” she said. “I’ve always been taught by my church, my parents, my community, to give back. So that’s what I do.”
As a teacher the helped students increase their awareness or the world and their community.
After she retired in 2001, St, John said she had the time to turn her focus to local social justice issues. She was a member the Human Rights Commission, and worked to get city council to pass an ordinance that banned discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
Then she worked on the campaign to save the ordinance when it was challenged on the ballot.
The ordinance survived “by the skin of our teeth,” she said. With almost all the votes counted, it looked like the repeal of the ordinance would succeed. “We were so demoralized.” Then on the strength of provisional ballots, the ordinance was upheld, St. John said.
People need to know that injustice doesn’t have to be accepted. There’s still work to do in 2019. “Things can be improved even though it’s glacially paced,” she said. “It’ll never be a utopia, but it can always be improved upon.”
