New St. Dom’s principal says taking job while grieving was tough

AUBURN – When Maine’s Catholic bishop offered the job of St. Dominic Regional High School principal to Donald Fournier earlier this month, he hesitated.

Michael Welch, the man who had a huge role in building the state-of-the-art school, the principal who months before hired Fournier as a religion teacher, had recently died.

“Here was this person who was larger than life,” Fournier said. “He was revered. He rolled everything that I look at as a leader into one.”

Fournier wondered, could he fill those shoes? He also was grieving the loss of Welch, whom he met six years ago.

But Fournier accepted the job because of the faculty and students, calling them an exceptional group. “Otherwise I would have been too overwhelmed to say yes.”

As a devout Catholic who once thought of becoming a priest, being principal was a chance for him to continue the ministry. As the former principal of St. Athanasius and St. John School in Rumford, he felt he had experience to run St. Dom’s “and move it forward.”

But with memories of Welch strong, there have been tough moments.

“It hits me when I walk into this office. For a while I didn’t even sit in this chair,” Fournier said.

He’s easing into his new role.

Overall, the students are doing well, Fournier said. Counselors were brought in immediately after Welch died. “The counseling staff was impressed. They said the kids were grieving already; they were dealing with it.”

Their faith has helped. As Welch lay dying at the hospice on what turned out to be his last day, religion classes were replaced by students mourning and praying in the school chapel.

Nearly a month later, students and faculty “are realizing a great person has left us,” Fournier said. “Yet we’re picking it up and taking what he gave us and going with it.”

On this day, students chatted and laughed in hallways. The girls’ field hockey team, then 13-0, was hoping to stay undefeated that afternoon. Fournier said he’s looking forward to hockey games, a big St. Dom’s tradition.

One of his jobs will be to recruit new students, something public school principals don’t have to worry about. He’ll ask parents to give the college-prep school consideration at an Oct. 29 open house.

Parents who belong to a Catholic church pay $5,500 in tuition per child per year. Most St. Dom’s students are Catholic, but not all. “We take from different faiths or no faiths,” Fournier said. “Even though we are Catholic, we don’t force the issue so much that it makes them feel uncomfortable.”

Fournier, 46, grew up in Jay. His father worked for the paper company for more than 40 years. He and his siblings were raised Catholic. As a boy he thought about becoming a priest. By junior high school he was thinking about being a teacher.

He had good teachers, including nuns at St. Rose of Lima in Jay and at Jay public schools. His fifth-grade teacher was the perfect teacher, he said. “He got us thinking. He opened it up. I had a lot of good role models.”

Fournier lives in Hartford with his wife, Sharon, and two children – Chelsea, 17 and Nicholas, 14, both students at St. Dom’s.

As a parent, he believes his children will get strong values, ethics and a safe environment at the school. Parents send their children there to help them become “successful in their lives, including the spiritual aspect that quite often gets left out. There’s more to life than going through the motions.”

As principal he wants his graduates to be ready for college and to be sure of themselves when they leave, “to be promoters of their faith, their beliefs in Jesus, and to have a sense they can make the world a better place.”



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