Charlie Patton reports for the Jacksonville Times-Union:
When Dale Regan, then teaching at Sandalwood High School, applied for a job teaching English at what is now Episcopal School of Jacksonville in 1978, the school generally didn’t hire public school teachers, Mary May remembered.
But when May, who was then chair of Episcopal’s English department, looked at Regan’s references, May knew she had to hire her: “Everybody said she was probably the best English teacher in the county.”
That was the beginning of a career that would eventually carry Regan to the position of head of school at Episcopal, a job admirers said she performed with flair until Tuesday afternoon, when a disgruntled former teacher with a gun ended her life.
Matthew Townsend is a Halifax-based freelance journalist and volunteer advocate for survivors of sexual misconduct in Anglican settings. He served as editor of the Anglican Journal from 2019 to 2021 and communications missioner for the Anglican Diocese of Quebec from 2019 to 2022. He and his wife recently entered catechism class in the Orthodox Church in America.
