18 saint francis magazine | spring 2025 Stacy (Piper) Morrison figured her first teaching position out of Saint Francis would be a good starter job—a launching pad into her education career. She had never heard of Bluffton, Indiana, let alone Bluffton High School, before she was hired to teach business. “I thought I’d teach here for a couple of years, then get back to Fort Wayne or back to home in Ohio,” she said. “And then I fell in love with the community and the school.” Instead of taking flight out of Bluffton, Morrison put down roots. She went from teacher and volleyball coach to 16 years as assistant principal to—starting this fall—Bluffton High School principal. It has been a fulfilling journey in a place that represents everything she enjoys about guiding young people into adulthood. “As with every job, there are highs and lows, but I really enjoy working here,” she said. “We’ve got an amazing faculty, and I love the kids. If you stay in one school for your career, that says a lot about the school and the people you work with. Our current superintendent was one of my former students, and many of our teachers were students that I had in class. That is the point of my career that I am in now, having my former students as colleagues, and I love it.” Morrison’s journey started at Saint Francis as a talented volleyball player out of Fairlawn High School in Sidney, Ohio. Saint Francis offered the business teaching education she desired and an attractive volleyball program. Because she was a multi-sport athlete—she played five sports in high school—she also played softball at Saint Francis. “I came from a small school and Saint Francis was not too big, but not too small,” Morrison said. One of her high school friends, Walter Price, transferred to Saint Francis and ended up being roommates with Jason Morrison. Through their mutual friendship with Price, Stacy and Jason got to know each other. They began dating during Stacy’s junior year and married a few years after college. The couple has two daughters, Hunter and Zoe, now studying at Purdue University Fort Wayne and the University of Cincinnati, respectively. Jason Morrison (BS ’96) works as a principal of environmental strategy at SevenGen and the Morrison family lives in Ossian. “The friends I made at Saint Francis are still some of my best friends,” Stacy said. “And I walked out with a husband, so I’ll put that at the top of my list.” After student-teaching at Churubusco High School, Morrison landed at Bluffton in the fall of 1996. She immediately became the head volleyball coach—a rare role for a first-year teacher—and assistant softball coach. She loved coaching and did two six-year stints as Bluffton’s head volleyball coach. She stepped aside when she was pregnant with Hunter and returned to the sidelines when Hunter was a sophomore at Bluffton. “I said I would coach if they couldn’t find someone, which you should never say,” Morrison said, then laughed. She enjoyed her second go-round as coach, but she stepped back again because of her administrative responsibilities. After working alongside principal Steve Baker for so many years, Morrison was the natural successor when Baker announced his plans to retire at the end of this school year. She also continues to be a student council advisor, a role she finds fulfilling, too. “The best part of the job is working with students,” Morrison said. “I tend to see certain students repeatedly and it’s great to watch their growth from meeting them as freshmen to watching them walk across the stage and receive their diploma, ready to move on to the next phase of life.” Bluffton, a Class 2A school with 579 students in grades 9 through 12, could be described as not too big and not too small—the type of school where Morrison feels at home. “There’s just a good culture and a lot of people have worked here together for a while,” she said. “It’s unique and hard to describe unless you’re here. When we lose teachers, it’s usually to retirement. This is not a place where someone’s leaving just because they want to chase the next thing.” Photography by Tim Brumbeloe UP for SUCCES S E T T I N G S T U D E N T S SAINT FRANCIS VOLLEYBALL STANDOUT STACY (PIPER) MORRISON (BA ’95) FOUND HER HOME AWAY FROM HOME AT BLUFFTON HIGH SCHOOL, WHERE SHE WILL TAKE THE LEAD AS PRINCIPAL NEXT FALL.
