For a combined total of 78 years, Father George and Deacon Diana Luck taught theology to aspiring deacons, priests and laypeople at the Cathedral Church of Saint Matthew.

The couple were called to the teaching arm of the Episcopal Diocese of Dallas even as they performed other roles within the church.

“We both loved teaching,” said Diana of the lifetime they shared at the school, now known as The Stanton Institute. “The school was so much a part of our lives, and it was a wonderful thing for us that both of us were teaching there. We had a lot of conversations about the school and the classes.”

George, who was a priest in the Dallas diocese for 62 years, taught for 48 of those years. He died in 2020. Diana began teaching in 1999, soon after she was one of the first women ordained by Bishop James Stanton, for whom the school is named.

She will retire from her educator role at the end of the school year.

“I have loved it. It will be 25 years this year,’ she said.

George was a fifth-generation Texan and Dallas was always his home, while Diana grew up in Florida. She moved to North Texas to run a non-profit and met her husband of 33 years while he served on a committee that advised her work.

“George was ordained in 1958 and had spent his entire ministry in several different parishes over the years, but always in the diocese of Dallas. Rector of Holy Trinity, Heath, was his last and he was there 12 years. He really loved being there. It was a great parish for him,” she said.

After George retired, he continued to work for another 21 years as an assistant priest at St. Matthew’s Cathedral.

“It happens with clergy a lot,” Diana said with a laugh about the decades of work that continued after retirement.

To honor the couple’s years of devotion and service, a campaign is in place to name the Cathedral’s library, the “Rev. Canons George and Diana Luck Library and Seminar Room.”

“The idea of doing a room in the Stanton Center and a shared classroom between the Stanton Center and the Cathedral is to honor the ministry of Father George and Deacon Diana who have worked here for decades,” said the Very Rev. Rob Price, Dean of St. Matthews. “They have blessed the lives of so many laypeople and deacons and priests who took classes from them.”

The naming of the library – which will shelve some of George’s books – was initially supposed to be a surprise for Diana, but she heard about the effort.

“It’s hard to keep anything from Diana and that is part of her gift. She knows everything,” laughed Price.

All donations toward the naming are welcome and can be made by checks sent to the Cathedral or through Giving link at the top of the church website. People should make a note in the memo section that the donation is “Honoring the Lucks.”

Naming sponsorships will be $3,000 over the course of three years.

“Everyone who does contribute will be recorded in a memory book and their gifts gratefully received,” said Price. “I think it’s a wonderful way to recognize their beautiful ministry to the diocese as a whole and to the Cathedral community who love them so dearly.”

There will be a celebration honoring Diana’s ministry at 12:30 p.m., May 5, in the Great Hall.

While retiring as an educator, she will continue in her work as deacon at St. Matthews, near the library that will bear her and her husband’s names.

“The classes that I taught are being taken over by a wonderful deacon,” she said. “They’re in very good hands.”