Dr. Donald Edwards has spent more than five decades rising before dawn for the sake of Catholic education. The associate superintendent for Catholic schools in the Archdiocese of Miami was recognized for that lifelong commitment on April 6, 2026, when the National Catholic Educational Association presented him with its Lifetime Commitment to Catholic Education Award at the NCEA Convention and Expo in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

“I don’t receive many awards, certainly not many national awards,” Edwards said of the honor.

A Career Built on Early Mornings and Deep Roots

Edwards began his career in education long before joining the Archdiocese of Miami. He spent years in the Dallas area, serving as a choral director at Bishop College, teaching at Bishop Lynch High School, and working at St. Peter Academy. His academic formation is unusually broad: he holds undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral degrees in education, alongside degrees in music, choral music, composition, and arranging.

That combination of musical training and educational scholarship has shaped an administrator known for both rigor and creativity. Now in his fifteenth year with the Archdiocese of Miami, Edwards oversees a system of 65 schools and three stand-alone preschools serving more than 37,000 students across Miami-Dade, Broward, and Monroe counties — one of the largest Catholic school systems in the United States.

His day still begins the same way it has for half a century. “But I’ve gotten up at 5:15 in the morning for 53 years,” he said — an offhand remark that says something essential about the man.

Recognition From Colleagues and Churchmen

The nomination for the NCEA award came from Jim Rigg, superintendent of Catholic schools for the Archdiocese of Miami, who has known Edwards for more than 25 years. Archbishop Thomas Wenski of Miami added his endorsement to the nomination.

The award itself was presented by Archbishop Gregory Hartmayer, OFM Conv., the archbishop of Atlanta and current chair of the NCEA board, alongside NCEA president and CEO Steven Cheeseman.

Colleagues from within the Miami system have spoken warmly of Edwards’ influence. Sister Carmen Teresa Fernandez, president of Our Lady of Lourdes Academy in Miami, and Oscar Cedeño, principal of Cardinal Gibbons High School in Fort Lauderdale, were among those connected to the recognition of his work.

Catholic Education as Vocation

The NCEA Lifetime Commitment Award is given to individuals whose careers embody sustained, dedicated service to Catholic schooling — not merely professional achievement, but what the Church would recognize as a genuine vocation. Edwards’ trajectory fits that description precisely: 53 years of work, spanning music and administration, multiple institutions, and decades of early mornings spent preparing to serve students and families.

Catholic social teaching has long emphasized the irreplaceable role of the family in education, with the school understood as an extension of the home rather than a replacement for it. The Gravissimum Educationis, the Second Vatican Council’s declaration on Christian education, affirmed that Catholic schools carry a special mission: to integrate faith and culture, to form the whole person, and to serve the common good. Administrators like Edwards are the institutional backbone that makes such a mission sustainable across generations.

The Archdiocese of Miami’s school system — reaching children from the Florida Keys to Broward County — serves a diverse, largely immigrant population in one of the most culturally complex metropolitan areas in the country. Sustaining Catholic identity and academic quality at that scale requires precisely the kind of long-term commitment the NCEA award is meant to honor.

For his part, Edwards has offered no elaborate explanation of his perseverance. The 5:15 alarm, set and answered for 53 consecutive years, may be explanation enough.

Category: Church