David J. Stone ’99 took the long route to his career in education.
The Oregon native studied political science and English at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Ore., earning a bachelor’s degree yet remaining undecided about a choice of career. Should he go into law? Or education?
To help determine the right career path to take, Stone gave teaching a try by joining the Peace Corps to teach English as a foreign language. He was stationed in the Mongolian capital city of Ulaanbaatar. “As it turned out,” he relates, “I loved working with kids. I went the education route.”
This past July, Stone took up principal duties at the St. Luke Catholic School in Woodburn, Ore. — bringing with him nearly 20 years of experience in education. For the past decade, he served in various administrative posts at the preK through 8th-grade level, most recently at the Holy Family School in Lacey, Wash.
Before joining the administrative ranks, Stone taught English, social studies and computer science to middle-school students. His first teaching job after two years and two months in the Peace Corps (1993-95) in far away Mongolia was at Alcott Academy in Wichita, where he taught language arts to 7th and 8th graders.
During his time in Wichita, he solidified his career choice with graduate studies in education, graduating with a master’s degree in curriculum and instruction.
