Boo remained devoted to St. Scholastica community

Sister Mary Richard Boo, a former president of the College of St. Scholastica whose tenure ushered in co-education, a new science building and a board of trustees, has died.
She was 85.
Boo, who also taught English at the college, was its president from 1967-71.
She led the college during a tumultuous time in America’s history, said Bob Ashenmacher, a spokesman for the college who had worked closely with Boo. And when she retired in 1994, she remained a part of its community, contributing heavily in 2011 to the college’s centennial book.
“It was fun to talk to her,” Ashenmacher said, noting she had personally known every president of St. Scholastica. “She was literally living history of the college.”
Boo graduated from St. Scholastica in 1951 and became part of the St. Scholastica Benedictine community in 1952. She eventually earned a doctoral degree in English from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, along with four minors. She taught at the Catholic girls’ Stanbrook Hall High School in what is now the Monastery at St. Scholastica before joining the English department at the college as an assistant professor. She eventually became the department’s chairwoman. After she finished her presidency, she went back to teaching.
“She was first and foremost an educator,” Ashenmacher said, recalling she once told him she preferred that to administration. “She was the kind of person ready to contribute to the college however she could and in whatever role she could.”
The formerly all-female college, which opened in 1912, began officially accepting men in 1969, the same year the science building was completed. The establishment of the board of trustees was important, Ashenmacher said, because it was the forerunner of the modern model which runs the college.  
Boo also is known for writing the history of the St. Scholastica Monastery, “House of Stone: The Duluth Benedictines.”
A wake service and morning prayer will be held at 9:30 a.m. Wednesday in Our Lady Queen of Peace Chapel in the St. Scholastica Monastery.  A visitation will follow until the Mass of Christian Burial at 10:45 a.m.