When longtime art teacher Annie Ignagni died at the end of the 2024-25 school year, St. Mary Catholic Central High School’s National Honor Society students wanted to honor her.
Some of the 54 NHS members have been planning a memorial garden in Ignagni’s honor all summer. This week, Aug. 4-8, construction will begin on SMCC’s campus on Monroe’s Elm Avenue, with plans to dedicated it on Sept. 5.
Despite battling cancer, Ignagni, 59, was still an active teacher at SMCC through last school year. Also a freelance artist, she created art for SMCC’s annual auctions and for school walls, said Jeff Goda, SMCC’s director of marketing and communication.
“She passed away May 24, during Memorial Day weekend, the weekend before our final week of school and exams,” said Ellie Godfrey, SMCC math teacher and NHS moderator.
“While meeting with our NHS officers at our end-of-the-year meeting, they really wanted a way to honor Ms. Ignagni. Knowing her love for art, we brainstormed and came up with the idea as a group. Senior Sophia Short cherished Ms. Ignagni as a teacher and has been working on a few murals around the building. She jumped at the idea and offered to head the creation of the garden,” Godfrey said. “NHS will build and maintain the garden.”
Godrey and the NHS students posted a request for garden items, like eight bags of black wood mulch, 12 bags of river pebbles and eight clay red pots.
“Within hours of putting out the materials list to the SMCC community, we had everything donated. Ms. Ignagni meant so much to so many people, students, teachers, faculty and staff,” Godfrey said. “NHS will be covering the cost of the memorial bench that will be in the garden.”
The bench will be personalized for Ignagni.
“It will have Ms. Ignagni’s (20) teaching years at SMCC, her graduation year from St. Mary Academy (1984) and her favorite saying, ‘The Earth without art is just eh.’ Ms. Ignagni loved this quote and it really demonstrates the way she looked at life,” Godfrey said.
The garden will be finished at Sept. 5’s annual Lunch on the Lawn, when SMCC students will paint rocks for the garden. Afterward, the space will be blessed and dedicated, Goda said.
Ignagni’s daughter, Olivia Flint, a 2020 SMCC graduate, is pleased with the tribute.
“Olivia was over the moon with the idea,” Godfrey said. “She (told) me, ‘It is an absolutely beautiful way to honor my mom and it means more than you know. This is why I love being a graduate of SMCC and am so glad that my mom taught there for so long. The family/community that we have is amazing!'”
Godfrey hopes the memorial will be a comfort to students and staff.
“As teachers, we have struggled with the grief of the loss of a colleague, teacher and, most of all, a friend. We all feared what that first day back would look like with our students,” Godfrey said. “We are extremely proud of the way our students came together as a family and entered the situation, showing the respect that Ms. Ignagni so rightly deserves. Their commitment to form this memorial garden became reality pretty quickly, and they never wavered in this task. As friends and fellow teachers of Ms. Ignagni, we could not be more proud of our students to create this beautiful tribute.”
— Contact reporter Suzanne Nolan Wisler at swisler@monroenews.com.
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