Mary Petri (West) (1971)
I'm sad to hear of the passing of Martha Fly. I graduated from Loretto in 1971, and did not meet Martha until 1985. By then Loretto had shut its doors, but a core group of its teachers, determined not to let its legacy die, had formed the Kansas City Academy of Learning.
I was an "older" student at UMKC, working on a Master's in Public Administration, and writing a paper for the class "Community Organizations and Public Policy." We were to write a community organization case study, and I chose the Kansas City Academy of Learning. Martha, as its Principal/Coordinator, graciously agreed to a tour of the school and an interview. KCAL had become the new standard-bearer for the Loretto philosophy that "the process of learning, the learning how to learn, is as vitally important as the content of learning."
Martha was passionate about her work and about the need for this type of education. She said: "I see us as serving the broader community.... We want to see ourselves where the community is a resource to us and we can perhaps be a resource to the community..."
Thirty-five years later, the dream and vision live on in the Kansas City Academy. Good job, Martha. Rest in peace.
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