Diane Gerchario McGrady, a thirty year member of the faculty of Cathedral School in Raleigh, was presented The Monsignor Gerald Lawrence Lewis Award for Lifetime Achievement in Catholic Education at the Raleigh Diocesan Teachers Conference on October 14, 2011. The presentation took place at St. Francis of Assisi Church in Raleigh after an opening Mass, celebrated by the Most Reverend Michael F. Burbidge, Bishop of Raleigh.

Mrs. McGrady, a transplanted New Yorker, began her teaching career at the Berkeley Manor Elementary School at the Camp LeJeune Dependent Schools in Jacksonville, North Carolina. In the fall of 1981, she joined the faculty of Cathedral School, teaching Kindergarten for the next ten years. In 1991, she developed the Pre-K four-year-old program and served as its first teacher for the next two years. For the next sixteen years, Mrs. McGrady taught First Grade. In 2009, Diane left the classroom and became the first Director of Curriculum and Instruction at Cathedral School.

“Diane has touched the lives of over a thousand students during the past thirty years. She has been with us long enough to teach the children of former students”, said Mrs. Donna Moss, Principal of Cathedral School. “When Alumni visit, one of the first questions they ask is, ‘Is Mrs. McGrady still here?'” Among her duties as Director of Curriculum and Instruction, Diane mentors teachers and students and puts to full use the wealth of experience she has gained over the years.

On the personal side of her career, Mrs. McGrady is married to Bill McGrady. They are the parents of a daughter and a son, and the grandparents of a granddaughter.

Mrs. McGrady is no stranger to the Lewis Award. In 1992, the first year the Lewis Award for Excellence in Teaching was presented, she was one of the three Finalists. Again in 2009, Mrs. McGrady was chosen as a Finalist for the Excellence in Teaching Award.

The Monsignor Gerald Lawrence Lewis Award for Lifetime Achievement in Catholic Education honors individuals within the Catholic education system of the Diocese of Raleigh who have made significant contributions to Catholic education, and who also demonstrate an outstanding and ongoing commitment to their students, their colleagues, their schools and to their family, church and civic communities. The Recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award may be in administration, faculty or staff. The Lifetime Achievement Award is an honor bestowed by the Lewis Award Committee at its initiative and only when it deems circumstances warrant. Mrs. McGrady is the fifth Recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award in the twenty years of the Lewis Award’s history.

In closing her introduction of Diane McGrady at the Award presentation, Donna Moss summed up all that Mrs. McGrady is to Cathedral School with, “Diane is a wife, mother, grandmother, sister, leader, teacher, colleague, mentor, avid reader, conscientious exerciser and friend. And I am blessed to call her mine.”