St. Joseph Schools reorganized; president named

Intermountain Catholic

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SALT LAKE CITY — Joanna Wheelton, currently director of advancement at the Madeleine Choir School, has accepted the newly created position of president at Saint Joseph Schools in Ogden.

As part of the reorganization, effective Aug. 1, the Saint Joseph Schools will be governed with one board, which will have 14 members. The board members were approved by the Most Rev. John C. Wester, Bishop of Salt Lake City; and Holy Cross Sister Catherine Kamphaus, superintendent of the Catholic Schools of the Diocese of Salt Lake City.

Wheelton said she is looking forward to working with St. Joseph Schools. "They have fantastic programs and the potential, especially for the high school, is enormous. The program is fantastic – the academic mix, the sports, the theater – it’s all there. We just need to bring the students."

Increasing enrollment, particularly for the high school, will be her initial focus. "I want to make sure that everybody knows what the private high school in Ogden is," she said, adding that the market is quite large, extending from Bountiful to Brigham City.

In her four years at the Madeleine Choir School, Wheelton has raised more than $3.5 million for the school’s capital campaign and annual operating budgets. At St. Joseph Schools, she hopes to incorporate not only her fundraising skills but also her legal background; she holds a law degree and practiced law in New York, with extensive work in estate planning, contract law and not-for-profit law and management.

"We are delighted to have Joanna join our schools’ administrative team as president," said Sr. Catherine. "Joanna’s gifts will make it possible for the new governance structure to succeed and for the schools to continue to flourish."

The position in Ogden will allow Wheelton to work five minutes from home. Not only does she live in Ogden but her ancestors were some of the area’s first settlers. Her great-great-grandfather on her mother’s side was, she thinks, the first middle school principal in Ogden, and all her cousins live nearby.

Although she grew up in Centerville and New York, she and her family moved into her grandmother’s house two years ago.

"The community is dear to us," she said. "I think the Catholic schools in Ogden are really important to the community and I want to see them succeed to their fullest ability."

Wheelton is excited about her new position, but sad to leave the Madeleine Choir School.

"I leave it reluctantly, but this is such a fantastic opportunity for me," she said. The choir school "is like a family. I am definitely going to miss that and my children will certainly miss the fantastic teachers that they have had."

When she accepted the job at St. Joseph Schools, she asked that she be allowed to finish the fiscal year at the choir school, she said. "That was a big issue that I wanted to make sure that I was leaving them with as smooth a transition to the new person as possible."

She is already starting to work with the principals at St. Joseph Elementary and High School, Nancy Essary and Lori Walz, but her official start date is July 1.