Desplaines Valley News

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Distinguished Argo alumni enjoy recognition

By James Pluta

Argo Community High School District 217 recently recognized 19 of its
former graduates who have demonstrated success in the business, community
and educational service fields. This is a continuing series of those
former students honored by students and staff alike.

Richard Morgan
Class of 1948
Missionary in Africa
The only Distinguished Alumni Award given out posthumously last month was
in honor of Class of ’48 graduate Richard Morgan of Summit, who spent most
of his storied career performing missionary service in South Africa —
mostly in Mozambique.

His widow, Lois Morgan (nee Solomon, Class of ’50), who grew up with him
in Summit, actually graduated the same year as his brother, Robert, but
they met while attending a youth group through the Summit Bible Church.

“He was the head of the Student Advisory Board and he used to lead all the
assemblies,” his wife recalled. “He turned out to be such a tall guy —
6-feet, in fact — but back then he was smaller, and very smart.”

After graduating from the Illinois Institute of Technology with a degree
in mechanical engineering in 1952, he served a few years during the Korean
War as a member of the U.S. Army’s Counter-Intelligence Corps in Chicago
investigating those applying to join the U.S. Army.

It was there where he became a master at expertly checking references and
asking all the right questions to really get to know people. Those skills
worked wonders for him in his chosen career in missionary work, said his
wife.

He and Lois married in 1955 and began to raise a family in the United
States, where they had a daughter and two sons. He later attended a Moody
Bible Institute missionary aviation pilots and mechanics course,
graduating in 1959, then left the U.S. three years later to study language
in Lisbon, Portugal.

At Moody, he was among 12 of 200 successful applicants selected for the
specialized training — and that led him to an offer to become a pilot in
Angola, an opportunity which turned out to be short-lived because he was
American and the wrong religion.

He left Portugal for South Africa in 1965 to fly with the South Africa
General Mission, where he spent the next 22 years as a pilot and teaching
in churches, recalled his wife, who said they then left South Africa in
1986 to lead a team of new missionaries in Mozambique for the next 11
years.

During that period, they became grandparents to seven children, five born
in the States and two born in Mozambique.

While in Mozambique, the Morgans flew missions together at a time of war
and were blessed with their command of the main speaking language of the
land, traveling frequently with team members from Brazil, Australia,
Britain and America.

She recalled one time when they had to fly to South Africa for supplies
and came across some “very cocky” soldiers who displayed their AK-47
machine guns to show their strength.

“As we would drive, we’d see burned out buses and vehicles,” she said. “We
(had) so many stories to tell. Richard was a very humble guy who really
knew how to ask questions and get the most details out of people.”

When they flew missions in Zulu land, they would take patients to and from
the hospitals and transport doctors who otherwise would have to cut a path
with machetes through war-ravaged jungles risking their lives in the
process.

When Lois Morgan spoke to Argo High students on Alumni Day Jan. 22, she
told stories about their mission flights and of a little boy who wouldn’t
board the aircraft until a woman wrapped him up in her waistcloth to
protect him.

“After that, he was so excited to be flying in the plane,” she said.

She also brought African animal puppets of an ostrich, a hippopotamus and
a giraffe and used some of the Zulu language she knew to tell stories —
piquing interest especially among students in a Spanish class.

Her visit to Argo, where she once served as editor of The Argolite
yearbook, found the place to be bright and colorful, nothing like the
“dark and dreary” campus she remembered.

In their 22 years in South Africa, the nation shifted away from Apartheid,
but because white leaders never taught black citizens how to live
properly, the country was plagued with crime, poverty and AIDS.

There is one student her husband taught from South Africa who had only
attended school through the sixth grade when they met, whom her husband
later learned was doing his doctoral thesis after completing his education
back in Mozambique.

“He was my husband’s favorite,” she said.

Her late husband returned to South Africa to teach and supervise
maintenance of a seminary and in 2000, came back to the States in ill
health, teaching in six churches who supported their missionary work up
until two weeks prior to his death in 2006.

Richard Morgan’s life, she said, was all about serving the Lord.

“His love of the Lord Jesus Christ is what (drove him) to serve,” she
said. “People can do for their bodies, but the Lord does a lot for their
souls ... Nothing was as important to him.”

Their children are all doing work in service to mankind, she said.

One of their sons is a computer consultant with the Honeywell space
program in Arizona, the other works in the computer printing industry
serving Christian organizations in Minnesota and their daughter is a nurse
in St. Cloud, Minn. who often serves South African and particularly Somali
women using language she grew up with which they might understand.

Morgan’s photo will accompany the 18 others in a gallery of alums outside
of the student cafeteria this winter. He was nominated by fellow classmate
Ted Ronczkowski of Bridgeview.

Christine (DiNello) Baldwin
Class of 1990
Elementary school principal
As principal of Lyle Elementary School in her hometown Bridgeview,
Christine Baldwin encourages her teachers to challenge students to
participate in a “Pay It Forward” campaign that encourages everyone to
perform random acts of kindness in their everyday lives.

“It could be anywhere from a kindergartner simply saying ‘I helped my Mom
today’ to an older child who cleaned out their closet and donated unused
clothing to Goodwill,” she said. “One child even said they bought lunch
for the guy behind them at Subway one day.”

Regardless of the random act, she said she hopes the daily exercise brings
about a social awareness among young children in how to treat other people
and convinces them to carry out kindly acts of a similar nature the rest
of their lives.

Baldwin, a Class of ’90 graduate — then known as Christine DiNello — said
the activity that changed her life more than anything was her involvement
in the Argo High’s early childhood program under then-faculty sponsor
Sammy Tsenes.

“Back then, we got to work with real kids ... and it’s then that I
realized this is what I want to do with the rest of my life,” she said,
adding it’s what she spent most of her time doing her junior and senior
years in addition to her part-time job at the nearby Kmart.

After high school, the former Bridgeview School pupil earned a bachelor of
arts in elementary education from St. Xavier University in Chicago and
started teaching fifth- and sixth-grade classes at Lyle School in 2000.

While there, she earned a masters in educational administration from
Governors State University — which led to her being named assistant
principal for two years and principal of the kindergarten-to-6th-grade
school for the past four years.

“I think the best part of my job is still being able work in the community
I grew up in, which makes the experience a little more special ... and a
little more meaningful,” she said, noting she handles disciplinary matters
differently having that connection to the neighborhood.

On her recent trip to Argo, she said things looked mostly the same except
more updated. And, she said, while the school still has an early childhood
program, students no longer have the opportunity to work with children as
she did.

Baldwin, who spends some of her free time teaching catechism classes at
her family’s parish, St. Fabian Catholic Church in Bridgeview, was
nominated for the award by her assistant principal, Sue Almendarez.

“Mrs. Baldwin is extremely dedicated to her career, to her students, her
staff and community,” she wrote in her nomination. “She is very
motivational and (is) always looking for ways to inspire the students and
staff.”

Almendarez also highlighted Baldwin’s “Pay It Forward” program as being
indicative of the commitment to education she shares with all of the
children and staff under her tutelage.

“Christine works very well with children and young adults. She treats them
respectfully and truly listens to their concerns,” she said.

“Growing up in this community, she is knowledgeable about the challenges
kids face,” she added, calling Baldwin “an inspiration, especially to
young girls seeking careers, because of how she advanced so young.”