By Ellen Sweeney-Clawson, Director of Alumni Relations
One Person Two Professions
One Mission Imagine picking up your cell phone, reading the screen, and viewing the notification “missed call.” Fairly simple to imagine, as this is an event we experience quite frequently. Now imagine yourself picking up that same cellular device, seeing the same missed call notification from your “career path,” your “life journey,” your individual “mission.” Not quite the same everyday occurrence, yet this imaginative exercise can help to cultivate the idea of answering one’s calling. It is as simple as picking up the phone and for a select few, the call is answered, the message is received and the mission is clear.
R
ichard (Dick) Ward’s calls were as clear as the voice on the other end of a telephone and the message was received by his ears and accepted by his heart. Who was that voice? Fr. Ward states, “Jesus asked me to do many things beyond the norm.” No one would argue that point: Dick Ward ’43, is father of Tim ’69, Kevin ’72, Shelia, grandfather of Kaleigh Ward ’06, Caitlin Ward Grams ’04, Cary Ward ’02 and River Ward,
husband of Nora, and also a medical doctor and diocesan priest. One can appreciate the confusion, but on Dick Ward’s part there has always been a clarity to his life’s direction and work. At eight years of age, staring down the hatch of a naval ship, Dick Ward discovered his calling to become a doctor. Dick grew up in an apartment on Boren between Pike and Pine. He enjoyed the run of a large neighborhood and a window on the world including the St. James Cathedral and the Puget Sound. In 1933, that vision of blue water became decorated with battleships and sailors. As a young boy, Dick found himself drawn to these figures, and toured a
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Spring 2012