Dr. Michael Guillot




Dear De La Salle Community,

Thank you for the Memorial Mass remembering my husband, Dr. Michael Guillot. It was a beautiful and poignant ceremony and Michael would have been honored to know that he touched your lives as deeply as you touched his.

During his illness, my husband often spoke of De La Salle High School. He discussed his plans for the school’s future. He spoke of his unwavering confidence in the administration, board and alumni leadership, and praised their collective passion for piloting this school. He lauded the teachers and their enthusiasm for embracing innovation and new teaching paradigms. And he spoke of the amazing students of De La Salle – the reason for its existence.

Many of you wrote Dr. Guillot repeating his phrase, “take care of yourself, take care of each other, take care of this place” You said he should focus on taking care of himself, and you promised you would take care of each other, and take care of this place for him. Your words moved him and his response was “I am counting on it”.

 

Dr. Guillot once said:

“Every single one of you has something you’re good at. Every single one of you has something to offer. And you have a responsibility to yourself to discover what that is.

The story of our school and our legacy isn’t about people who quit when things got tough. It’s about people who kept going and who tried harder.”

 

My husband believed in trying harder, striving higher, and leaving the world a better place. He believed change is always possible. There were many who thought a 65-year-old institution would be too steeped in tradition to change. But Michael believed. The Board of Directors believed. The Christian Brothers believed. The administration, faculty and student body believed. The alumni believed. And now the wheel of change has been set in motion.

“So today, I want to ask you, what’s your contribution going to be? What problems are you going to solve? What discoveries will you make? What will a president who comes here in 65 years say about what all of you did for our community, our country, our world?”

On behalf of the Guillot family, thank you for embracing my husband, his ideas and his dreams. Thank you for making us a part of the De La Salle family.


Sincerely,

Lisa Gadd-Guillot


“We share a moment of promise and greatness –and I couldn’t imagine a better time to be here, to be at De La Salle.” – Dr. Michael Guillot

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