Sister Donna Marie Trukowski, 50 Years

“Today, the hardest thing to do for people is to think of making a lifetime commitment,” observed Felician Sister Donna Marie Trukowski. “The human race needs direction and guidance.”
 

Now celebrating a half-century of religious life, Sister Donna’s strong hand in the classroom and principal’s office has affected the lives of three generations of Catholic school students.
 

Sister Donna, a Bayonne native, attended the town’s Our Lady of Mt. Carmel School, where her love of the Catholic faith was nurtured.
 

“A large number of the staff was religious,” she said. “I admired their spirit, their happiness, their joy and the way they helped people.”
 

Her parents were not initially in favor of her decision to become a religious, Sister Donna said, “They wanted me to see the other side and sent me to public [Bayonne High] school, but I kept coming back to the Church.”
 

The young woman was undeterred; after enrolling at Jersey City State College for a year, the future religious entered the Felician Sisters and professed her final vows in 1962. Sister Donna earned a bachelor’s degree in elementary education at Felician College, Lodi, then began her career in Catholic education at the town’s St. Francis de Sales School; Holy Cross School, Trenton; St. John Kanty School, Clifton; and St. Anthony High School, Jersey City.
 

Sister Donna first joined the staff of then-St. Thomas Aquinas High School, Edison, in 1970; she served as mathematics department chairperson and teacher, mini-course coordinator, cheerleading moderator and book store manager. Simultaneously, she earned her state certification and master’s degree in mathematics at Rutgers University, New Brunswick. After nine years at the school, she felt it was time for a new challenge and accepted the position of principal of Most Sacred Heart Grammar School, Wallington. After a three-year term at the Bergen County school, Sister Donna’s community requested she return to St. Thomas Aquinas as principal.
 

“I said, ‘No,’ at first,” Sister Donna remembered with a chuckle, but she reconsidered and assumed that role Nov. 15, 1982. The following year, St. Thomas Aquinas High School was renamed Bishop George Ahr High School.
 

Now entering her third decade at St. Thomas Aquinas, Sister Donna’s imprint on the school has been broad and deep. Advances in technology, the adoption of more athletic programs and extra-curricular activities and a 12-year building and reconstruction project have been achieved during her tenure.
 

“It’s been a wonderful experience. Catholic schools pass on the faith for the next generation,” Sister Donna said in a recent interview with “The Catholic Spirit.”

 

The high school’s mission statement echoes its principal’s life goals. On the Bishop Ahr High School website, it reads, “The school provides an atmosphere in which each individual’s God-given abilities are nurtured and developed. Every student is encouraged to strive for spiritual, academic, social, creative and athletic excellence through the interaction of a caring community… Each individual can grow in self-esteem, in social and moral responsibility, and in those values needed to face the challenges of tomorrow’s world.”