I’m Mary Sturm, Art Teacher for all the grades at St. Clement’s.

I also teach Media Literacy/Eighth Grade Video Explo classes and

supervise the primary grades' lunch and recess.

For fifteen years I've served on the St. Clement Technology Committee, now as the school’s audio/video coordinator. We are in our second phase of a media literacy program for the school.

This is my twentieth year at St. Clement’s.

I’m married to Jim Sturm, who provides distance educational opportunities to classrooms.

(I especially enjoyed our school’s participation in the series called “Inside the Artist’s Studio.” See our archived videoconferences at www.roundtrips.org

We have a son Nick who is an engineer for Komatzu. He and his wife Jenni live near Peoria, IL. We have really enjoyed our grandson, Julian, who was born last March.

I was born and raised in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, and

earned my Bachelor’s Degree in Education at Southeast Missouri State University.

My Missouri Teaching Certificates are for Art K-12 and for elementary classroom teaching.

I earned my Masters' Degree in Theology at St. Louis University, and

both a Catechist Certificate and a Parish Director of Religious Education Master Certification from the Archdiocese of Saint Louis.

I’ve taught for 28 years. Four of those were in elementary grade homerooms and

24 years have been teaching art in grades ranging from preschool through high school.

My initial 8 years' experience was in public schools in the Missouri Ozark Mountain area.

We moved to St. Louis over twenty-two years ago, and

I’ve enjoyed teaching in the St. Louis Archdiocese since that time.

I belong to the National Catholic Educational Association.

I serve as coordinator of the multi-school Archdiocese Student Art Exhibit held during Catholic Education Week at an area mall…this year will be at West County Centre.

At Holy Infant, my home parish,

I am the 2:00 a.m. hourly coordinator for Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration,

I serve as a lector, and

I am presently helping spearhead our parish Pro-Life Committee’s efforts as part of the Missouri “Cures Without Cloning” initiative. It will alter the recent, deceptively-worded, narrowly-passed Amendment 2 of to the Missouri State Constitution that legalized the unnecessary cloning of embryos in order to kill them for stem cell research.

I’ve co-presented at several Missouri Educational Technology Conferences, and

I served on the committee writing Volume 2 of the Archdiocese Art Curriculum.

I’ve received

The Sr. Miriam Joseph Farrell, PBVM Distinguished Teacher Award from the

National Catholic Education Association, Elementary Department,

The Educator of Achievement Award from the Missouri Council for American Private Education,

The Emerson Electric Company Excellence in Teaching Award,

both the 1995 and 2008 Kirkwood Rotary Teacher of the Year Award,

and the St. Clement of Rome Teacher of the Year Award.

Some charities close to my heart are:

Ø Birthright, 2206 South Brentwood, St. Louis, MO 63144, http://www.birthright.org/

Ø Priests for Life, http://www.priestsforlife.org/

Ø Catholic Charities, Archdiocese of St. Louis, 4532 Lindell Blvd., St. Louis, MO 63108, http://www.ccstl.org/index.php

Ø Catholic Relief Services http://www.crs.org/

Ø Eternal Word Television Network, http://www.ewtn.com/

Ø Covenant Network Radio, 3515 Hampton Ave., St. Louis, MO 63139, http://www.covenantnet.net/

Ø Operation Food Search, 6282 Olive Blvd., St. Louis, MO 63130-3300, http://www.ofsearch.org/