Members of the Nevitt family pose with Cistercian form masters on Jan. 27 at Park City Club. From left, Father Anthony Bigney, O.Cist., Father Bernard Marton, O.Cist., Father Abbot Peter Verhalen (’73), O.Cist., Austin Nevitt (’04), Luke Nevitt (Class of 2030), Matthew Nevitt (’97), Adam Nevitt (’99), Dean Nevitt (Class of 2026), Greg Novinski (’82), Father Augustine Hoelke (’00), O.Cist., Grant Nevitt (Class of 2024), and Gary Nied.
By Amy White
The Texas Catholic
In 1989, a 10-year-old Matthew Nevitt first stepped onto the Cistercian Preparatory School campus to join a new school with unknown possibilities ahead. Thirty-five years later, on Jan. 27, Dr. Matthew Nevitt received the highest honor bestowed by the Cistercian Alumni Association: the Jim & Lynn Moroney Award.
“The Jim and Lynn Moroney Award was established by alumnus James M. Moroney III in 1992 to honor his parents by recognizing an alumnus who enkindles our hope for the future through his dedication to Cistercian,” said Father Abbot Peter Verhalen, O. Cist. of Our Lady of Dallas.
Matthew, a parishioner of Christ the King Catholic Church, received the award at Park City Club, surrounded by family, former classmates, and leaders from the school. His brother Austin Nevitt, Cistercian class of 2004, introduced him, before Matthew took to the podium to speak about the influence the “Cistercian experience” has had on his life.
The experience
The first time Matthew set foot on the Cistercian campus, in January 1989, he walked up the stairs of the middle school to take the entrance exam and spotted a smiling face beaming down at him: the face of Father Verhalen, the form master for the class of 1997.
Nevitt’s parents, Kathy and Matt, chose to send Matthew and later his younger brothers, Adam and Austin, to Cistercian after reading a news article about the school.
“We read an article in The Texas Catholic back in 1988, and it piqued our interest,” Kathy shared, stating that she had not formerly heard of the school. Matt and Kathy, both of whom had previously attended schools where priests and nuns served as teachers, were attracted by the educational involvement of the priests at Cistercian.
“[Cistercian] is run by an order of priests that work with boys and dedicate their lives to serving the needs of the students and educating them in body, mind, and spirit,” Kathy said. “It just fit for us.”
Even though the 26-mile drive from east Dallas to Cistercian would be a sacrifice for the one-car family of six, Kathy and Matt decided to enroll Matthew in the school.
Matthew joined Cistercian in fifth grade and soon began to excel. During his time at the school, he was student council president, an editor of the yearbook, and a community service coordinator. He played football, basketball, and baseball, and he ran track. Matthew said, at a small school like Cistercian, it was easy to get involved.
“He was well-rounded,” Kathy said. “From the time he was little, he excelled in academics. He loved sports. He’s very well-spoken. He’s very friendly. He is a good communicator. He sought out all the opportunities and the God-given gifts… And I think that from a young age, he just exhibited those qualities of leadership.”
Matthew said he found a brotherhood with his fellow students, and he found mentors in the priests, especially the form master of his class, Father Verhalen. He recalled the influence of those priests on students like him.
“They’re always around the school. They’re always interacting with the students. They’re always making sure that everyone’s being successful,” he said. “They’re there to basically serve the school and serve the students.”
Matthew graduated from the school in 1997, with a graduating class of 31 students.
Kathy recounted, “Father Peter told him when he graduated, he said, ‘Matthew, you’ve been given a lot of gifts, and it’s your responsibility in life to use those gifts to do good things now that you’re grown.’”
After graduating from Cistercian, Matthew graduated from Austin College in Sherman in 2001 and from UT Southwestern Medical School in 2005. He married Christine, who he had met in high school and reconnected with during college. He moved to Memphis for five years for his orthopedic residency, spent a year-long fellowship in San Antonio, then moved back to Dallas in 2011, where he reconnected with his high school community.
As an alumnus, Matthew has given back to his school in a multiplicity of ways.
Father Paul McCormick, O. Cist, headmaster at Cistercian shared, “A firm believer in Cistercian’s mission to form, educate, and care for our talented and motived young men holistically,
Matt serves as an alumni class agent for his class of ’97, as sustentation captain for his oldest son’s senior class, co-chair with his wife Christine of our current Formation Beyond the
Classroom capital campaign, as well as serving as the Hawks team sports doctor at our games.”
“Matthew Nevitt has given generously both his time and resources to Cistercian,” Father Verhalen said. “He most inspires hope in the future through his strong commitment to bringing people together in community—within his family, within his sons’ classes, among the parents, and among his classmates… He is a man who strives to live by and pass on the values he learned at home and at Cistercian.”
Currently, Matthew’s three sons—Grant, Dean, and Luke—attend Cistercian. His daughter Audrey attends Christ the King Catholic School.
“The biggest compliment that you can pay a school is when you see history repeating itself, and your children sending their children there,” Kathy said. Kathy has worked at the school for the past 18 years as a pediatric nurse, a role she filled on a volunteer basis while her sons were in school. “It’s not just a school… It’s a second home for us.”
Matthew agreed.
“It’s not just a place where you go and get educated and then you move on to the next step and you don’t look back,” he said. “It’s a community, and it’s an experience that grabs you and that draws you back.”
Gratitude
When Matthew received the Jim & Lynn Moroney Award on Jan. 27, he took the festivities as a chance to thank those at Cistercian who had shaped him.
“One of the most important parts of that honor was the opportunity to tell some people who are very important in my life ‘thank you,’ then how much they meant to me, and how much they do mean to me,” Matthew said.
He thanked his family, his classmates, his teachers. In a special way, he thanked Father Verhalen, his form master and “greatest Cistercian hero.”
“Father Peter was like a second father to me and my classmates during those formative years, a fair disciplinarian, a consoling counselor, a role model for all of us as we grew into young men,” he said.
Matthew also thanked his parents for the sacrifices they had made to send him and his three younger siblings to Catholic schools.
“When he spoke, it was a tearful moment because you realize he’s not speaking about himself,” Kathy said. “He talked about all the heroes in his life. He talked about the athletic director… Father Peter… Father Bernard… It wasn’t about him. He recognized all the people that got him where he was.”
“To have a school like that, a form master, brothers and classmates like that during those formative years is really important,” Matthew said. “It’s more than just a school and more than just education. It’s an experience.”
