Sheila Mattingly has been teaching in Catholic schools for 44 years. She spent two decades at the now-closed St. Francis of Assisi School in Loretto, Ky., and is still teaching first-graders at St. Joseph School in Bardstown, Ky.

Her dedication to Catholic education and her skill as an educator will be recognized before hundreds of people — as well as a dozen or so co-workers — when she receives the Father Joseph McGee Award for Outstanding Catholic Educator next month.

It will be presented during the 20th annual Salute to Catholic School Alumni set for 7 p.m. March 9 at the Galt House Hotel and Suites in downtown Louisville. The benefit dinner is sponsored by the Catholic Education Foundation. Awards also will be presented to seven Catholic school alumni and a community volunteer.

Michael Bickett, principal of St. Joseph, described Mattingly during an interview last week as a “quiet, humble leader.”

“She gives me guidance when I need it,” he said, noting that he knew her as Mrs. Mattingly when he was a kid in Loretto, Ky. “But her humbleness is incredible. She says, ‘I don’t understand why I’m the one’ ” selected for this award.

Bickett said that anyone who knows Mattingly easily understands the decision to honor her as a Catholic educator.

“She is steeped in the tradition of Catholic education, but she is progressive in looking forward also. “She’s always willing to move into the future of education,” he said.

And she has taught generations about the Catholic faith.

“Her heart has always been in it,” Bickett said. “She is a lifelong Catholic educator, and she nurtures (her students’) spiritual growth. I think that’s where she gets the most satisfaction.”

Mattingly was raised Catholic in New Haven, Ky., by parents who made prayer — and especially the rosary — a part of daily family life. That practice instilled in her a devotion to her faith and fostered a relationship with the Blessed Mother that Mattingly still treasures today. At St. Joseph, she organizes the May procession each year.

Her teaching career began four decades ago at St. Joseph when she was just 18 years old. The pastor of the parish at the time needed a second-grade teacher and asked if she could help.

When she said yes, Mattingly not only embarked on a teaching career, she also became a “career student,” attending college and earning two degrees over the course of 30 years. At the same time, she was also busy raising five children.

“I have been in school my whole life — teaching and learning and raising my family,” said Mattingly during an interview last week. She and her husband Tommy Mattingly had three children of their own and adopted two more young children from a relative.

Tommy Mattingly worked two jobs to help make ends meet — a night shift at General Electric and running a service station in Loretto, Ky., that he owned with his brother. Today, the brothers have a convenience store in Loretto, and Sheila Mattingly keeps the books.

Asked how they managed to make it all work, she said, “Don’t ask me how. You just keep going.”

And so she has.

In 1965, when she started teaching, Mattingly enrolled in Nazareth College. Later she took classes at St. Catharine College. She finally completed her bachelor’s degree in 1992 and a master’s degree in 1995, both at Campbellsville University.

She taught at St. Joseph until 1969. She took a year off in 1970, and then began teaching at St. Francis of Assisi School in Loretto. She taught there from 1971 until it closed in 1992. She’s been at St. Joseph ever since.

As Bickett mentioned, the Catholic faith is integral to her approach to education, Mattingly said. She was moved to tears a couple of weeks ago when she received an unexpected “thank you” and a clear affirmation of her life as an educator.

The mother of a former student from Loretto wrote a letter to Mattingly informing her that her son had been ordained to the priesthood recently in Rome. The letter included an article in which the former student, now Father Scott Murphy, wrote that Sheila Mattingly “touched his soul.”

“When I read that, it brought me to tears,” Mattingly said. “I was deeply honored. He was speaking about his Catholic faith.”

She said the article also mentioned Mary Gardner, formerly a teacher and principal at St. Augustine School in Lebanon, Ky., who now serves as assistant principal of St. Patrick School in Eastern Jefferson County.

Mattingly said that if she has her way, retirement is still at least a few years off.

“Praise the Lord, I don’t have an illness or anything,” she noted. “Those kids (at St. Joseph) make my day. I’m not ready to go home yet.”

She is quick to acknowledge her co-workers over the years who “made me who I am as a teacher today.”

“I was very deeply humbled and honored,” when she found out about her award, she said. “There are so many wonderful teachers out there.”

At St. Joseph School, “we all help each other,” she added. “We get along so well. They’re like my second family.”

She and her husband have been members of St. Francis of Assisi in Loretto since 1969, and she serves there as a Eucharistic minister. Their children are grown now — the youngest is 28, and they have seven grandchildren.