COLUMBUS, Ind. — The Rev. Clem Davis saw Helen Heckman as a superb administrator — one of the best he said he’s seen in his lengthy ministry history — but also as a remarkable friend to her staff and the St. Bartholomew Catholic School students she affectionately called “my kiddos.”
“She put the pal in principal,” Davis, senior associate pastor at St. Bartholomew Catholic Church, said Sunday.
The 57-year-old Heckman, the St. Bartholomew principal for the past seven years, died suddenly Thursday after suffering a sudden, spontaneous brain hemorrhage on Wednesday, according to her obituary.
“Her death is just heartbreaking,” Davis said of the Greenwood resident. “I know she’s in a better place. But we still badly needed her. And she was such a wonderful person who won people’s heart.”
For more on this story, see Monday’s Republic.
