Ms. Gloria Dempsey teaches Spanish, Stage Guild, and ESOL when it is offered at St. Mary’s Ryken High School for three years at St. Mary’s, but a total of four years in all. She has been working for two years on developing a strong stage guild program at the school, in which the guild is in charge of operating all the lights and theatre equipment in the auditorium for all stage events and the students work on building sets; it has built professionalism throughout the fine arts department. Ms. Dempsey’s passion is teaching day-to-day at SMR, “it is what keeps me going.”

Ms. Dempsey received her undergraduate degree from Randolph-Macon College in Ashland, Virginia, where she studied Spanish, International Studies in Latin America and Drama. She received her graduate degree from the College of Notre Dame of Maryland in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL). She has lived in Southern Maryland for a little over two years, moving from Baltimore, Maryland. She and her husband enjoy traveling and recently went to Spain and France with a group of students from SMR and their parents. She loves working in the theatre in her free time as well, but the true light of her life is her infant son.