Tom Price, 25, a teacher and coach at St. Joseph High School died Jan. 14 of a heart attack.

A 1967 graduate of St. Joseph, he received a BA degree in psychology from Brown University in 1971 and returned to Atlanta to teach. He joined the faculty of his high school alma mater in 1972 and taught social studies. He also coached football, baseball and basketball.

While a student at St. Joseph, Price excelled in sports and academics. He played on two championship football teams and was a member of the National Honor Society.

Fr. Terry Young, assistant principal at St. Joseph, called the death of the faculty member "much more than just a personal loss."

"Tom saw that teaching, if it is to be truly meaningful and significant to students, must go beyond the standard academic level and evoke in the students the desire to ask questions concerning their own existence, such as 'Why am I alive?'"

Fr. Young added, "Tom constantly asked such questions of himself and was really able to get down to the meaning of life with his students. I believe this more personal relationship was why he wanted to teach in a Catholic school. His students realized this and in an academic sense he brought a dimension of self-questioning to St. Joseph.

"Tom was an interesting and many-faceted person. Although the students called him Coach, he didn’t' consider himself as much a coach as a teacher."

"An interesting holdover from his youth," said Father Young, "was that he was always quite tall for his age and very sensitive about it. When he returned to St. Joseph as a teacher he was conscious of the sensitivity of others taller than some of their classmates and worked very closely with them"

Father Young said that Price's funeral, held at Sacred Heart, was "the closest thing to a state funeral that I have ever attended. I have never seen such a large gathering to honor someone other than a priest or public figure."

Price is survived by his mother, Mrs. Helen H. Price of Sts. Peter and Paul parish and a younger brother Bernard Price.