May 2008 Hidden Hero:

Sister Dolores Herbeck, OSF

  Listen to Sr. Dolores Herbeck's interview on Catholic Radio Weekly

Graceful, kind, firm, gentle.

That's the demeanor of the ideal teacher, and it's an apt description of Sister Dolores Herbeck, OSF, who has served as pastoral associate of Holy Rosary parish in Lander,   Wyoming, for the past 11 1/2 years, with the help of a Catholic Extension subsidy.

With her close-cropped grey hair and erect posture, Sister Dolores looks every bit like the school principal she was for 17 years at St. Martha's School in nearby Riverton, where she grew up.

Sister Dolores has lived in Wyoming for most of her life. Her father, a farmer in Nebraska, packed up his family and moved west during the Dust Bowl. The family settled in Riverton, where she attended public school. Her family attended  St. Martha parish, where, as a young girl, she often prayed before the statue of the Little Flower at the rear of the church.

"I might have become a Carmelite!" she smiles, but she was drawn to the gentle example of the Sisters of St. Francis pf Philadelphia who served at the St. Stephen Indian Mission nearby, and entered that order in 1953.

Twenty years later, she would return to Riverton as a teacher and then leader of the newly opened St. Margaret's school, and the community was proud that a "local gal" had come home to help the youngsters in Riverton grow in faith and knowledge.

Since August 1997, Sister has directed the religious education program at Holy Rosary Church, where more than 50 students ride the senior citizen bus from the local public school to the quiet parish hall each Wednesday for classes after school.

There's no cutting up.  A class of second-graders thoughtfully takes a test on the Eucharist, which they received for the first time in April. A class of seventh graders, among the 77 who were confirmed along with students from neighboring communities,  design personal prayer journals. A couple of classes join forces to watch and discuss a movie on the Prodigal Son.

The parents who teach the classes are all volunteers, but you'd never know it. Sister provides guidance, training, and has regular "faculty meetings" because it makes her teachers feel "as if they're part of a team."

This July, Sister Dolores will be retiring to  her order's convent in Tacoma, Washington, though she shows no sign of slowing down.

"I'm very happy being of service to people, developing their spiritual life,"  says this Sister,  who put in many 12-hour days praying for and serving the communities she loves.