Local News - March 2003

Local teachers to be honored with awards

By JEREMY ASHTON, LTN Staff Writer

March 5, 2003 - Lincoln County educators are getting plenty of representation at regional awards banquets this year.

Teachers from two Lincoln middle schools will be honored at the North Carolina Middle School Association’s state conference in Greensboro next week after sweeping the association’s annual awards for Region 6.

Terri Crawley, an exceptional children’s teacher at East Lincoln Middle, was named the region’s Teacher of the Year. Jackie Hartman, a media specialist at West Lincoln Middle, won the award for Support Person of the Year. And a group of three sixth-grade teachers from East — Shea Huffman, Leslie Smith and Melissa King — were recognized as the Team of the Year.

The school system’s regional success with awards goes beyond the middle school level. Last month, Pumpkin Center Elementary School Principal Sheila Finger was a finalist for the Southwest Region Principal of the Year award, which is sponsored by Wachovia.

Crawley is in her third year teaching exceptional children’s classes at East. In the six prior years, she worked with elementary school students in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools.

Aside from her responsibilities in the classroom, Crawley is the sponsor of the student council and the chairwoman of the seventh-grade faculty. In the latter role, she headed up a writing conference for all of East’s seventh-graders that helped them address specific needs for the state’s writing test.

In her role in the classroom, Crawley helps exceptional children with math and language arts skills.

One of the classes Crawley teaches is known as an inclusion class in which she and another teacher from a regular class teach together.

Hartman, a former eighth-grade math and algebra teacher, is in her fourth year heading up West’s media center. After spending the first seven years of her career in Dallas, she has worked in some capacity in Lincoln County, primarily at West, since 1988.

Unlike teaching math, which she said is very structured, Hartman has a lot more flexibility in the media center. That allowed her to do several projects last year, especially with exceptional children’s classes.

At one point, she set up a tent in the media center and told stories to students around a paper campfire. She also worked with exceptional students on a transportation unit in which they studied different modes of transportation and built model airplanes.

“I enjoy reading to the students and encouraging them to read new books and different types of books,” said Hartman, who received certification from the National Board for Professional Teacher Standards earlier this year.

Huffman, Smith and King — collectively known as the Hornets — are in their second year working together.

King said one of the reasons the team has done so well is its willingness to take risks and try new ideas.

The Hornets do several projects that incorporate all of the subject areas they teach. On Greek Day, for example, Huffman talked about mythology and the alphabet while King had an “Olympics” where students had to measure different things, and Smith discussed Greek theater.

The team also keeps its students active in community service. The students have done several special projects for the residents of Lakewood Care Center, including making ornaments for Christmas.

All three believe that what has made their team successful is how well their personalities mesh.

“That’s what really makes a good team is finding someone you’re compatible with,” Smith said.

Finger, named Lincoln’s Principal of the Year in October, learned she was the runner-up for the regional award at a luncheon held Feb. 13.

Although the Principal of the Year award was sponsored by a different organization than the one behind the middle school awards, Finger was competing against principals from many of the same school systems.

“I didn’t anticipate anything other than just to go and hear who the winners were going to be,” she said. “It was a pleasure and a surprise.”

Finger has been a longtime educator in Lincoln County Schools, starting her career in 1979 as an exceptional children’s teacher at Rock Springs Elementary. She is the only principal Pumpkin Center has known since it opened in the 1999-2000 school year.

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Staff Writer Jeremy Ashton can be reached at 704-735-3031 or jashton@ltnews.com.

© 2001 Lincoln Times-News  

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