As Maggie’s long-suffering assistant, I felt I should explain how this article came to be. It started with Maggie becoming intrigued by the New York Times feature on Travis Kelce (shocking, I know!). Not casually interested. Obsessed. The kind of obsession where she kept talking about how the reporter followed him around, noticed the little things, got him to open up, and somehow made readers feel like they knew him. Maggie read the article and decided she could do that. She had the journalistic instincts. She had the curiosity. She had the sources. Or so she believes.
She also had Valerie Hahn, who is not only a parishioner here at St. Margaret’s, but an actual reporter who has done actual work for The New York Times. Maggie has always been a little jealous of Val.
Maggie’s original plan was to interview Meghan Markle, and boy was she P-U-M-P-E-D. Unfortunately, Megan is headed back to the United Kingdom, foiling Maggie’s plans and forcing her to pivot. And who, she wondered, could possibly be a more logical second choice? Our new principal, Dr. Thomas.
It’s important that I mention that Maggie wrote this article herself. While I know that most of the things she writes sound completely outrageous and made up (and let’s face it, specific facts are not always Maggie’s strength), but not this time! This time they are not. I fact-checked them. I verified her sources. Every ridiculous detail you are about to read is true.
You’re welcome.
Finally, it’s a long one. Maggie was really feeling herself on this one.
I’m sorry.
— Paige
Culinary School Dropout Turned Principal
By Maggie (Queen of Scotland)
First Impressions
I arrived at St. Margaret School that day, prepared to observe Dr. Thomas doing Principal Things™. Budgets. Meetings. Emails. Paperwork. Perhaps standing dramatically in a doorway contemplating the future of Catholic education. Instead, I found her standing outside the bathroom doing bathroom duty. She was making sure the children were behaving themselves, which is a fairly good introduction to Dr. Thomas once you get to know her, because Dr. Thomas is a rule follower. Not sort of a rule follower. 100% A RULE FOLLOWER. 🫡
She grew up as an Army brat, which means she was born in Korea, lived in Germany, moved around the United States, and generally grew up knowing that there was probably a right way to do something and a wrong way to do something. She describes herself as a cradle Catholic and casually mentioned that her father used to give her “room inspections” as a kid (bouncing a quarter on the bed to make sure it was made correctly!). Suddenly everything clicked into place. If there is a rule, she likes them to be followed. I could practically see the pieces of the puzzle falling together.
And yet, despite the no-nonsense exterior, there is a softness underneath. “Angie, she said. Not Dr. Thomas. I want people to call me ‘Angie’.” And in a short bit of time, you begin to see the person underneath that rule follower. She is funny. Charming, disarming, and quite an interesting dichotomy below the surface. One she is not sure about showing to everyone (not yet) – but of course, once the cat was out of the bag, I was not going to shy away from sharing. Just spend any one-on-one time with Angie, and you’ll quickly see there’s more than meets the eye.
From Oklahoma to South City
Angie and her husband moved to St. Louis from Oklahoma in May, along with their three children, so she could take the principal job at St. Margaret’s (and so her husband could transfer to his new role at Boeing). No, St. Louis! She did NOT go to high school here! But she has had to entertain the age-old St. Louis question, as she mentions in an op-ed piece she did for another very reputable news source here. 😉 But Angie didn’t just move states. She went from living in the country, on acreage, to living in South City with city blocks. She is now, by her own admission, an urbanite. I asked her what the biggest adjustment has been so far. The answer was something I didn’t expect – not having a trash can! She explained that she’s forever been a suburbanite, so the idea of going to the alley to throw out the trash is a totally new concept. Especially to one of her boys, who insists on wearing gloves when completing the sanitation work. #ThatWontLast
And despite moving hundreds of miles, starting a brand-new job, and learning an entirely new school community, one thing hasn’t changed: She notes that she has always worked at the same school as her kids; at one point, she was even their science teacher.
When she talks about her children, her whole demeanor shifts a little. Not dramatically. Just enough that you could tell we had moved away from the principal interview and into something much more personal.
I asked her what her favorite thing about being a mom is. Her answer – making traditions. She likes celebrating the everyday things. The little milestones. The things that might not seem important enough to anyone else but become part of the family story. On the day we talked, her middle child had just finished working his way through a Nick DiGiovanni cookbook. Later that night, he was planning to make pork chops with butter and rosemary; they were going to be celebrating that for sure. She also likes to celebrate their “baptism birthdays”, and the feast days of the saints they’re all named after (ok, in truth, they aren’t named after saints – they are actually named after Marvel and DC superheroes). Also, the pork chops were delicious.
She Has Layers
The more time you spend with Angie, the more you realize that the principal standing in the hallway outside the bathroom is not exactly the whole story.
She plays piano AND the tenor saxophone (she jokes that she’s Asian – so of course she had to learn multiple instruments!). There was mention of idolizing Bill Clinton, I think; maybe it’s all a bit fuzzy now. She loves 90’s country music. Her first concert was Martina McBride with her parents, but later she saw Destiny’s Child with friends.
She listens to old-school reggaeton and LOVES Daddy Yankee. A fact she quickly regretted letting slip.
“Wait,” she said. I looked up. “Don’t put that in there.” Reader, I put it in there.
She admits to being able to sing ALL of the lyrics but not actually knowing what they mean. I suggested that maybe Daddy Yankee was singing about the Rosary. She laughed. Which, frankly, is all I needed.
Obviously, I had to ask about Taylor Swift. This is where the interview almost ended. Angie is not a Swiftie. I have decided to forgive her. Sometimes it takes some people longer to see the light than others.
A Brief Detour to China
After hearing about her love of Daddy Yankee, our conversation somehow took a dramatic detour. She started telling me about how she became a culinary school dropout. As you can imagine, I had more than a few follow-up questions. She explained that after college, she moved to China to teach in business school through a program with Missouri State University.
And because apparently having a full-time job in another country wasn’t enough of an adventure, she decided to enroll in culinary school at night. This is where things took a turn. She didn’t speak Mandarin Chinese. Which, it turns out, should probably be listed as a prerequisite when you are trying to learn culinary techniques in Mandarin… who knew?? She lasted about seven months before she quit. She said half the time she didn’t even know what she was trying to put into the dishes she was supposed to be making! #WhoCouldBlameHer
I believe the technical term for this is Beauty School Dropout, but make it culinary. Cooking School Dropout. I can hear Frankie Avalon singing it now! (I could make a joke here about grease Grease – you know, cooking – but why pander.)
Once again, she laughed at the reference. Then she gave me a look. “Wait! Don’t put that in there!” Dr. Thomas. You are going to have to stop telling me things.
The Love Story
Not all is lost. Turns out that Angie doesn’t exactly dislike Taylor Swift. She’s just old-school. Her favorite Taylor Swift song – ‘Love Story’. Which led me to ask how she met her husband, and yet another story emerged that I seriously could NOT have anticipated. Here’s the abridged version: A coworker once tried to play matchmaker and set the two of them up; neither of them was particularly interested. So naturally, they decided to play a practical joke on the coworker. They started texting about the joke. Then they kept texting. Eventually they realized they actually really liked each other.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what we call the joke’s on them.
Their wedding invitation even included a screenshot of the text messages where they had been plotting the practical joke. Which is objectively hilarious.
Then came the wedding. They eloped to Las Vegas – sort of. Their parents did tag along; her Korean mother was never going to let her daughter truly elope without her. Of course, I asked if there was an Elvis impersonator involved. “No,” she said. Why? Because Elvis cost an extra $99. This woman knows every word to Shania Twain’s ‘Man, I Feel Like a Woman’, can plot fantastic practical jokes, but paying an additional $99 for Elvis is where she draws the line on fun! I respect a woman with a strong moral compass.
Her Favorite Movie Is Apparently a Lie
When discussing other cultural references, Angie is quick to respond about her favorite movie. Without hesitation, she says Napoleon Dynamite. I thought, Interesting. She explained that she mostly liked it because it was made by a student as his EOY project. How very principal of her.
Once again though, immediately following the “principal” response, she confesses that her REAL favorite movie is Dirty Dancing. Almost under her breath. As if spoken to Fr. Vien behind a screen in Church. This feels much more accurate. I mean, there is something deeply satisfying about learning that the woman responsible for enforcing school rules has a soft spot for a movie that famously begins with Baby being told she isn’t allowed to have fun.
Nobody puts Baby in a corner. “Although, apparently, they may book adjoining rooms on their wedding night.” She immediately looked at me. “Wait! Don’t put that in there!” Again?? Seriously?
I will not be telling you the rest of that story. Mostly because I would like to remain in her good graces, but I will tell you that I WAS told the story and I laughed. A lot.
The Ricky Martin Incident
Her first crush? Ricky Martin. I was delighted. Then came the confession: She was devastated when news broke that #SheIsNotHisType. I will simply say: Same, Girl! And also, not a surprise. I am realizing that ‘Living La Vida Loca’ could apply here.
Peanut Brittle, Love Is Blind, and Other Lasting Impressions
Her guilty pleasure is peanut brittle. Her binge show is Love Is Blind. This time, “You really can NOT put that in there!” To which I say – “Give it up, lady! It’s going in there!”
She likes to eat spicy things. She speaks more Spanish than Korean (thanks, Daddy Yankee!). Food is her love language (again, she says, because she’s Korean!). She’s an INFJ for all you enneagram believers out there. She married a man with an equally dark sense of humor. She has a glass of cheap champagne every night – part of that whole “celebrate every day” mantra that she maintains with her family. The Korean soup, kimchi jjigae, would be her Death Row meal (I did mention the dark sense of humor…). And she is apparently a woman who knows exactly how much it costs to rent Elvis in Las Vegas.
I feel like I know her now. And maybe that’s the point.
Because somewhere between the bathroom hallway, the pork chops, the room inspections, the practical jokes, the $99 Elvis, and the repeated warnings of “Don’t put that in there,” Angie stops feeling like just “the new principal” and starts feeling like a well-rounded person. Someone you can relate to. Someone who moved her family to a new city and walked into a brand-new job where she immediately had to learn new names, new traditions, new expectations, and, apparently, a very complicated history involving a dragon.
Because there is one more thing you should know. Angie has apparently been told for years that St. Margaret killed the dragon. She believed this for quite some time.
So imagine her confusion upon arriving at a Catholic school whose mascot is… a dragon. I would like to clarify something for the record. I did not kill a dragon. I have no idea where this rumor started. (Actually, I do, but that’s for another day)
I would like to speak to the manager.
But I also think there is something fitting about Angie arriving at St. Margaret’s and discovering that things are not always quite as black-and-white as she might prefer.
There are rules.
There are traditions.
There are dragons.
There are children who occasionally need to be supervised outside bathrooms.
There are mothers eating pork chops made by middle schoolers.
There are new cities to learn.
And there are apparently reporters like me who cannot be trusted when they say, “This will stay between us.”
Angie, you are doing just fine.
Welcome to St. Margaret.
And for the record, I only put most of it in here.
