Headmaster

Rev. Peter Verhalen, O.Cist

Peter Verhalen first came to Cistercian more than 45 years ago as a student in the school's fourth entering class. For a boy born in Midland, Texas, he acquired a unique appreciation for the ancient tradition of Cistercian education. After his sophomore year at Cistercian, he asked then headmaster Fr. Denis Farkasfalvy if he could spend his next year at one of the Cistercian schools in Austria. Arrangements were made for him to live and study in the secondary school run by the 18th-century Austrian Abbey of Schlierbach. Living in the Cistercian boarding school, Fr. Peter not only experienced something of the richness of the Austro-Hungarian Cistercian traditions, but he also began to think seriously about becoming a Cistercian monk. He returned to Dallas for his senior year at Cistercian, graduated in 1973 and enrolled at Bowdoin College in Maine.

Within two years, however, the call to live the Cistercian life brought Fr. Peter back to the Cistercian Abbey of Our Lady of Dallas. He entered the Abbey in 1975 and continued his studies at the University of Dallas, where he earned a BA in classics and later an MA in theology. He was ordained a priest in 1981. Fr. Peter has also earned MAs in English (The University of Texas at Arlington) and classics (The University of Washington). He has taught English, theology and Latin at Cistercian and served as Form Master for three classes (Class '89, Class '97, and Class '03), Director of Admissions, and Head of Upper School. He was appointed Headmaster in 1996.