Chalkboard Champion and Four-Star Army General Lewis Blaine Hershey

Many chalkboard champions serve in ways other than in the classroom. One example of this is Lewis Blaine Hershey, a four-star general in the United States Army who served his country in the military for sixty-two years.

Lewis Hershey was born on September 12, 1893, in Steuben County, Indiana. As a youngster, Lewis attended the local public schools. After his high school graduation, Lewis trained as a teacher at Tri-State College, now known as Trine University. After earning a bachelor of science in 1912 and a bachelor of arts in 1914, he taught at local elementary schools and served as a school principal in Flint, Indiana.

In 1911, Lewis enlisted in the Indiana National Guard. Almost immediately, his guard unit was called to active duty on the Mexican border, where they served until December, 1916. That year he was commissioned as a second lieutenant. His unit was again called to federal service during World War I, when Lewis was deployed to France as part of the American Expeditionary Force.  After the war ended, Lewis continued his education at both  the Command and General Staff College and the Army War College, graduating in 1933. Then Lewis taught military science at Ohio State University.

In 1936, Lewis was assigned to the General Staff in Washington, D.C. In 1940 President Franklin Roosevelt promoted the former teacher to brigadier general, and in 1941 President Roosevelt designated him Director of the Selective Service. Lewis was the longest-serving director in the history of the Selective Service System, and holding the position until 1970. His years of service spanned World War II, the Korean War, and the Viet Nam War.  General Hershey was one of only three generals in the history of the United States Army to have served as a general during three major conflicts. Despite this distinction, his service during the Viet Nam War generated a great deal of controversy.

 

Lewis retired from the Army as a four-star general in 1973, at the age of 79. Suffering from heart failure, he passed away in Angola, Indiana in 1977, and was buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

Sandra Adickes: The Chalkboard Champion of a Mississippi Freedom School

Thirty-year-old Sandra Adickes was an energetic and idealistic high school English teacher from New York City the year she ventured south into Mississippi to teach in a Freedom School. The goal of the summer program was to empower the black community to register to vote and to help bridge some of the gap of educational neglect that had long been a tradition in that Jim Crow state. Both blacks and whites realized that only through education and participation in the democratic process could African Americans ever hope to improve their lot.

 

The enterprise was not without danger. On the first day of Freedom Summer, three workers involved in the program disappeared while investigating the firebombing of the church facility designated for their voter recruitment activities. Six weeks later, as Sandra Adickes conducted her classes in Hattiesburg, the badly beaten and bullet-ridden bodies of the three missing men were discovered buried in an earthen dam in nearby Neshoba County.

 

At summer's end, Sandra accompanied her fearless students when they decided to integrate the Hattiesburg Public Library. Sandra was arrested in the effort. Read her riveting story, and what became of her courageous students, in her book Legacy of a Freedom School. You can also find a chapter about this remarkable teacher in my book, Chalkboard Champions., available from amazon.

Lisa Niver Rajna: The Chalkboard Champion Who Teaches Her Students That Science Isn't Scary

Lisa Niver Rajna, an elementary science teacher from Los Angeles, California, is an amazing chalkboard champion. Lisa was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1967, and earned her master's degree in education from the University of Pennsylvania. In addition to her career as a professional educator, she is also a sought-after motivational speaker, travel agent, and travel writer.

Lisa is well-known in science teacher circles for her instructional strategies that emphasize her students use technology and real world connections to explore their passions and to work towards solving today's most complex issues. She has also developed a successful summer science camp for students and maintains a science-based web site entitled Science Isn't Scary. In 2009, Lisa founded the Los Angeles Science Teachers Network (LASTN),  a professional development network that by May, 2012, involved over seventy teachers and forty schools. The effort has been praised by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Lisa Niver Rajna has published many articles in online and offline magazines, including National Geographic, The Huffington Post, The Guardian, and The Jewish Journal. She was a 2012 nominee for the Presidential Awards for Excellence in Math and Science Teaching.

Here is a link to her educational web site: Science Isn't Scary

Here is a link to her travel web site: We Said Go Travel

Chalkboard Champion and Actress Myra Davis Hemmings

Many chalkboard champions have enjoyed successes in fields other than education. One such individual is Myra Davis Hemmings, a teacher of English and drama at Phyllis Wheatley High School in San Antonio, Texas. Myra's career as an educator spanned fifty-one years, but she can also boast about significant accomplishments in theater and film.

This gifted teacher and actress was born in Gonzales, Texas, in 1887, the daughter of Henry Davis and Susan (Dement) Davis. After graduating from Riverside High School in San Antonio, Texas, in 1909, Myra enrolled in Washington D.C.'s all-black Howard University. During her college years, Myra had the distinction of being president of both the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority and the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority. She graduated from Howard in 1913 and immediately began her career in the classroom.  Later, Myra returned to the university to earn her master's degree from Northwestern University's Speech Department in 1947. In her later years, she was a national vice president, a former regional director, and an active member of the National Council of Negro Women. She was also a member of the NAACP.

In 1922, Myra married John W. Hemmings, a former Broadway actor. As a drama teacher, Myra directed plays from the 1920s to the 1950s at the Carver Community Cultural Center in San Antonio. She also became active as a director in the San Antonio Negro Little Theater. She and her husband helped to organize the Phyllis Wheatley Dramatic Guild Players. In addition to all this, the talented teacher appeared in three films.

Myra  Davis Hemmings passed away in San Antonio in 1968. She was 73 years old. Both the classroom and the theater miss this chalkboard champion greatly.

Charlotte Forten Grimke: The Chalkboard Champion of Emancipated Slaves

One of the most heroic teachers I have ever heard of is an African American woman named Charlotte Forten Grimke. This amazing woman, who was born a free black in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on August 17, 1837, became a teacher of newly emancipated slaves in Port Royal, South Carolina, during the Civil War. After the Union Army pushed through the area, freeing the slaves along the way, the government recognized that these newest citizens desperately needed assistance in basic literacy skills and some vocational training on how to take care of themselves. Charlotte agreed to travel to the South, despite the high risk to her own personal freedom and her rather delicate health. While the war raged on around them, she set up a school and diligently held classes for students who ranged in age from kinders to grandparents. When the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, an all-black regiment, suffered high casualties at Fort Wagner on July18, 1863, Charlotte left her classroom with a substitute teacher and went to the soldiers' aid as a nurse and letter writer at the nearby hospital where the injured had been taken.

 

You can read her fascinating story in her own words through her very copious journals, The Journals of Charlotte Forten Grimke, or you can read a shorter chapter about her life in my book, Chalkboard Champions. Either way, the story is a good read.

Lucia Darling: Montana's Chalkboard Champion

In October, 1863, twenty-seven-year-old Lucia Darling opened the first school in Montana on the banks of Grasshopper Creek in the frontier village of Bannack. Until a cabin could be built to serve as the schoolhouse, she used the sizable and comfortable home of her uncle, Chief Justice Sidney Edgerton, who had been appointed the governor of the territory. Makeshift desks and chairs, books, and other teaching materials were hastily acquired. Her students were the children of the three thousand or so homesteaders and gold miners who had established their claims in the wild and woolly Western town. "Bannack was tumultuous and rough," the young school teacher wrote in her diary. "It was the headquarters of a band of highwaymen. Lawlessness and misrule seemed to be the prevailing spirit of the place." Through her school, Lucia sought to inject some civilization into the place.

Lucia was born in Tallmadge, Ohio, in 1839. Although raised on a farm, she spent her childhood in academic pursuits. When she was old enough, she became a qualified teacher and spent nine years teaching in an area of northeast Ohio. She also taught at Berea College, the first integrated college in Kentucky. She did this at a time when it was unusual for a woman to get a college education or go to work.

In 1863, Lucia accompanied her uncle and his family as they relocated to the West, keeping a detailed diary of the route, the Indians they encountered, the historic landmarks they passed, the weather patterns, and the chores she completed each day along the journey. The group traveled by train from Tallmadge to Chicago, by river boat down the Missouri River to Omaha, and by covered wagon across the vast prairies of the West. After three months, the expedition finally landed in Oregon. From there Lucia made her way to Bannack, where she founded her school.

After the Civil War, Lucia traveled to the Deep South where she taught for the Freedman's Bureau, an organization founded by the US government in 1865 to provide educational opportunities for newly-freed African Americans.

Lucia Darling: a true chalkboard champion.

Sister Blandina Segale: The Chalkboard Champion Who Taught Young Outlaws

The teacher sat beside the pale body of a teenaged outlaw who had been severely wounded in a shoot-out. Gently she mopped the sweat from his brow, helped him swallow a few mouthfuls of fresh water, and changed his bandages. A gang of youthful renegades surrounded the wounded youth's sickbed. The teacher, who was also a Catholic nun, was Sister Blandina Segale.

Rosa Maria Segale was born on January 23, 1859, in Cicagna, Italy. When she was only four years old, her family immigrated to the United States, settling in Cincinnati, Ohio. After graduating from high school, she entered a convent, changing her name to Sister Blandina at the time she took her final vows.

Mistaking the community for Cuba, Sister Blandina accepted a position as a teacher in Trinidad, Colorado. She arrived in the centennial state on December 10, 1872, and immediately set about persuading the locals to build a better school building and to acquire better furnishings for it.

It was in Trinidad that one day Sister Blandina was called upon to care for bullet-ridden Happy Jack, a member of Billy the Kid's infamous outlaw gang. As compensation for her efforts to save Jack's life, Billy granted Sister Blandina one favor. She immediately asked that he cancel plans to kill four physicians in Trinidad who had refused medical treatment for Jack. Unfortunately, the wounded outlaw eventually died from his wounds, but the nun was able to save the lives of the four doctors.

Mary Tsukamoto: The Chalkboard Champion Imprisoned in an American WWII Internment Camp

When Pearl Harbor was attacked by the Empire of Japan, Mary Tsukamoto was living a quiet life as the wife of a strawberry farmer in a diminutive Japanese-American community in Florin, Northern California. Following the attack, Mary's quiet life was suddenly turned upside-down. Like 120,000 other persons of Japanese descent living on the West Coast, most of them American citizens, Mary was forced into a relocation camp by the U.S. government because her loyalty to our country was questioned. Mary, her husband, their five-year-old daughter, her elderly in-laws, her teenaged brother and sisters, and other members of her family wound up in Jerome, Arkansas, where they were incarcerated until authorities were convinced this family of farmers posed no threat to national security. While detained in the camp, Mary became part of a prisoner-organized effort to provide meaningful educational opportunities for their imprisoned children. Mary taught speech courses for the high school students and English language classes for the elderly.

When the war was over, Mary returned to college, completed her degree, and became an elementary schoolteacher, one of the first certificated Japanese-American teachers in the United States. Her remarkable story is told in her autobiography, We the People, a volume which unfortunately is now out of print. However, with some effort, it can be found through second-hand book sellers or in some libraries (check WorldCat), and it is well worth the hunt. You can read also read her story in Chalkboard Champions, available through amazon.com.

Pondering Professional Responsibilities

As teachers ready themselves for the start of another school year, it seems appropriate to spend some time reflecting on professional responsibilities. Usually I read the list of responsibilities for teachers published by the National Popular Education Board in 1872. It's amusing to see how much things have changed in the last one hundred and forty years. Here's the list:

• Teachers each day will fill lamps, clean chimneys.
• Each teacher will bring a bucket of water and a scuttle of coal for the day's session.
• Make your pens carefully. You may whittle nibs to the individual taste of the pupils.
• Men teachers may take one evening each week for courting purposes, or two evenings a week if they go to church regularly.
• After ten hours in school, the teachers may spend the remaining time reading the Bible or other good books.
• Women teachers who marry or engage in unseemly conduct will be dismissed.
• Every teacher should lay aside from each pay a goodly sum of his earnings for his benefit during his declining years so that he will not become a burden on society.
• Any teacher who smokes, uses liquor in any form, frequents pool or public halls, or gets shaved in a barber shop will give good reason to suspect his worth, intention, integrity and honesty.
• The teacher who performs his labor faithfully and without fault for five years will be given an increase of twenty-five cents per week in his pay, providing the Board of Education approves.

Awesome.

Strong School Library Programs Increase Standardized Test Scores

Most chalkboard champions agree that library programs are extremely valuable to students. But did you know that, according to recent studies, strong school libraries help to increase standardized test scores? Statistics show that public schools with strong school library programs outperform those without such programs on high-stakes standardized tests. This is true regardless of the school community's parent education, poverty levels, ethnicity, or the percentage of English language learners in the school population. Increases in library program elements correspond to standardized test scores at all grade levels: elementary, middle school, and high school.

Library elements that contribute to increased test scores include the total number of hours the library is open, the total amount of technology available from the library, the total services provided by trained library staff, the presence of a program of curriculum-integrated information with literacy instruction, the informal instruction of students in the use of resources, providing teachers with information about new resources, and providing reference assistance to both teachers and students.

A strong school library program in described as one that provides a full-time teacher/librarian, a full-time paraprofessional, a robust and up-to-date collection of digital, print, and media resources with a budget to support it, and abundant access to the library's facilities, technology, and resources. How well does your school's library program meet the criteria?

Author Sharon Flake Gives Urban Boys a Distinctive Voice

Award-winning author Sharon G. Flake gives urban youths a distinctive voice in her unique book You Don't Even Know Me: Stories and Poems about Boys. The volume includes ten very moving portraits of African American boys, with free-verse poems interspersed, all written in the street language of inner-city African American teens.

The haunting characters and the pathos of their life circumstances will tug at your heart strings. There's the story of sixteen-year-old Tow-Kaye, who is getting married because his girlfriend is pregnant. He wants to do the right thing, but he's scared to death. There's the story of the youngster who is wrestling with the violent murder of his beloved grandfather, and his impulse to get revenge. Then there's James, who keeps a diary detailing his plans to commit suicide. And the story or La 'Ron, who must write a letter to his family revealing that he has been infected with the HIV virus. Despite the complex and demanding situations these boys find themselves in, there is always a note of optimism at the end of each story.

This easy-to-read volume has been recommended for students in grade eight and above, and has been recommended by School Library Journal. You can find You Don't Even Know Me at amazon.com.

George Sonny Franck: A Genuine Chalkboard Champion

George Franck, who was popularly called Sonny, was a high school teacher and football coach, first in Oklahoma City and then at Rock Island High School in Illinois, retiring after twenty-five years as a professional educator in 1978. He earned his bachelor's degree from the University of Minnesota and his master’s degree from the University of Oklahoma.

But before he became a chalkboard champion, Sonny was a halfback in the National Football League, playing for the New York Giants. It was a success story that surprised the humble Iowa boy, who had a reputation in high school for being scrawny but tough. Sonny became an all-state end for his alma mater, Davenport High School, and led the school to a state track title, anchoring an 880-relay unit that set a state record. After graduation, he was recruited to play football and run track at the University of Minnesota, where he became a starting halfback in 1938 and led the Golden Gophers to a national championship in 1940, his senior year. That season, Sonny was named an All-American, All-Big Ten, and the Most Valuable Player of the College All-Star Game. Academically, he earned the Big Ten Medal for scholarship and athletics. In the Heisman Trophy voting that year, Sonny placed third, and then he was drafted into the NFL in the first round in 1941. That's when he went to play for the Giants.

Sonny was also a WWII veteran. Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, he served his country in the US Marines, joining as an infantry officer and completing a tour of duty on Iwo Jima. While there, he saw Jack Chevigny, a football star for Notre Dame, killed in action. Sonny eventually became certified as a fighter pilot and served aboard the USS Hornet. A recipient of nine battle stars, he narrowly escaped death when his plane was shot down in the South Pacific in 1945. When the war was over, Sonny resumed his professional football career, playing for the Giants in their 1946, 1947, and 1948 seasons.

George Sonny Franck passed away from acute leukemia in January, 2011, at the age of 92. He was a genuine chalkboard champion.

Elizabeth Duncan Koontz: The Chalkboard Champion Who Served in President Nixon's Administration

Many talented educators have also made important contributions to our country's political arena. Such is the case with Elizabeth Duncan Koontz, a special education teacher from North Carolina.

Elizabeth Duncan was born June 3, 1919, Salisbury, North Carolina, the daughter of two educators. She was the youngest of their seven children. Elizabeth was only four years old when she was enrolled in elementary school, but she had already mastered the ability to read and write. The child excelled as an elementary school student, even helping her mother with the lessons of illiterate adult learners that her mother was tutoring in reading. ''I knew then that teaching was for me,'' she related years later.

In 1935, Elizabeth graduated as the salutatorian from Salisbury's segregated Price High School. Three years later, in 1938, she graduated from Livingstone College with a bachelor's degree in English and elementary education. In 1941, she earned her master's degree from Atlanta University. She also completed courses from Columbia University, North Carolina College, and the University of Indiana.

Elizabeth inaugurated her career as an educator when she accepted a position as a fourth grade teacher in North Carolina. Particularly interested in helping children with disabilities, she became a special education teacher at Price High School in Salisbury, North Carolina. She spent her entire career championing equal rights and better opportunities for African Americans, women, and the working poor. In 1968, this dedicated educator became the first African American president of the National Education Association.

In 1969, President Richard Nixon appointed her to be an advisor to the US Secretary of Labor. She also served as the director of the Women's Bureau. At the end of President Nixon's first term Elizabeth returned to North Carolina to coordinate the nutrition programs for the Department of Human Resources. From 1975 until her retirement in 1982, she served as Assistant State Schools Superintendent.

Elizabeth's many contributions did not go unnoticed. She was given the North Carolina Award for Public Service in 1977, and in 2006, Elizabeth Duncan Elementary School in Salisbury was named in her honor.

Eve Kristine Vetulani Balfour: The Chalkboard Champion Who Was Once Imprisoned by the Nazis

One indisputable chalkboard champion is Eve Kristine Vetulani Balfour. Born a Catholic in Krakow, Poland, this remarkable educator came from a family that abhorred the Nazi regime. The Vetulanis adopted a Jewish woman during WWII, thereby saving her from the Nazis. Eve Kristine did not escape their clutches, however. In 1942, during the German occupation of Poland, she was forced to work in Nazi slave labor camps. Her knowledge of languages saved her life during World War II because she was more valuable to the Germans as a translator than a slave laborer. Fortunately, she was liberated by the Allies in 1945 from a camp in Nordhausen, the site of the construction of V-1 and V-2 rockets.

After the war, Eve Kristine worked as a translator for US Army intelligence while she attended Frankfurt University in Frankfurt, Germany. In 1950, she immigrated to the United States as a displaced person. Upon her arrival, she first enrolled at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. After moving to Maryland, she graduated from Frostburg State Teachers College, Maryland, in 1962, and earned her master's degree in French from Middlebury College, Vermont, in 1966.

For over twenty-five years Eve Kristine worked as an instructor of French, German, and Spanish at Woodlawn High School in Baltimore, Maryland. She retired from the teaching profession in 1988. Able to speak Polish, Russian, German, Spanish, French, and Italian, Eve Kristine translated historical documents for the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC, after her retirement. She also worked for the Red Cross at their Tracing Bureau, assisting efforts to reunite Holocaust survivors with their families.

Eve Kristine passed away in 2004 at the age of 79, but she will always be remembered as a true chalkboard champion.

Science Made Thrilling by Educator Michael Stephen Lampert

Science is a thrilling experience in the classroom of educator Michael Stephen Lampert, a teacher at West Salem High School in Salem, Oregon. This dedicated educator opens his classroom at least one afternoon each week for students to work on their science projects, which he mentors. He also coaches the school's robotics team and academic teams, including Science Bowl, Ocean Bowl, and High Five. Twice Michael's students have won the Toshiba ExploraVision competition for their work developing a prosthetic arm that can sense touch and using bio-sensing technology to treat attention deficit disorder. Also, his students advanced to the finals in the Lemelson-MIT Inventeam contest for their work on a device that evaluates the ripeness of watermelons.

 

This remarkable educator has quite a professional resume outside of the classroom as well. For example, he has launched weather balloons in Antarctica to study ozone depletion, and he has helped install an infrasound listening station in Africa that can be used to detect a nuclear explosion. When he is away from the classroom working on projects such as these, he shares his experiences with his students through online journals, demonstrations, and community presentations. In addition to his hands-on projects, Michael has helped write curriculum and design the web site for the new PBS show Wired Science. He has written numerous grants to fund innovative projects that explore topics such as airbag physics and sports physics. He has earned more than $250,000 in grants for his students. And he has conducted extensive outreach programs to elementary schools in his home town.

 

Michael has earned plenty of recognition for his efforts. He was one of forty-five winners of the 2005 Disney Teacher Award. In 2009, he was selected Oregon Teacher of the Year, and the same year he was named the winner of the Science Education Prize for High School Teachers by the American Association for the Advancement of Science Leadership. In 2010, he was one of ten winners of the PBS Teachers Innovation Awards. Additionally, the Society for Science and the Public has listed him as one of ten SSP Fellows.

Michael Lampert graduated from UC Berkeley with a degree in physics, and then started work on his doctorate in atomic physics at Oregon State University before deciding to pursue a career in teaching. How greatly is the profession enriched by the contributions of this amazing chalkboard champion!

Zitkala Sa: The Music Teacher Who Became a Political Activist and the Champion of the American Indian

One of the most amazing chalkboard champions and political activists in American history is Native American Zitkala Sa, whose Indian name translated means Red Bird.

This remarkable educator was born on February 22, 1876, on the Yankton Sioux Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Her father, an American of European descent, abandoned his family, leaving his young daughter to be raised alone by her Native American mother. Despite her father's absence, Zitkala Sa described her childhood on the reservation as a time of freedom and joy spent in the loving care of her tribe.

In 1884, when she was just eight years old, missionaries visited the reservation and removed several of the Native American children, including Zitkala Sa, to Wabash, Indiana. There she was enrolled in White's Manual Labor Institute, a school founded by Quaker Josiah White for the purpose of educating "poor children, white, colored, and Indian." She attended the school for three years until 1887, later describing her life there in detail in her autobiography The School Days of an Indian Girl. In the book she described her despair over having been separated from her family, and having her heritage stripped from her as she was forced to give up her native language, clothing, and religious practices, and to cut her long hair, a symbolic act of shame among Native Americans. Her deep emotional pain, however, was somewhat brightened by the joy and exhilaration she felt in learning to read, write, and play the violin. Zitkala Sa became an accomplished musician.

After completing her secondary education in 1895, the young graduate enrolled at Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana, on a scholarship. The move was an unusual one, because at that time higher education for women was not common. In 1899, Zitkala Sa accepted a position as a music teacher at Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Here she became an important role model for Native American children who, like herself, had been separated from their families and relocated far from their home reservations to attend an Indian boarding school. In 1900, the young teacher escorted some of her students to the Paris Exposition in France, where she played her violin in public performances by the school band. After she returned to the Carlisle School, Zitkala Sa became embroiled in a conflict with the Carlisle's founder, Colonel Richard Henry Pratt, when she expressed resentment over the rigid program of assimilation into the dominant white culture that Pratt advocated, and the fact that the school's curriculum did not encourage Native American children to aspire to anything beyond lives spent as manual laborers.

As a political activist, Zitkala Sa devoted her energy and talent towards the improvement of the lives of her fellow Native Americans. She founded the National Council of American Indians in 1926 and served as its president until her death in 1938. She traveled around the country delivering speeches on controversial issues such as Native American enfranchisement, their full citizenship, Indian military service in World War I, corruption in the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and the apportionment of tribal lands. In 1997 she was selected as a Women's History Month Honoree by the National Women's History Project.

Zitkala Sa: a national treasure and a genuine chalkboard champion.

If interested, you can read more about the Carlisle Indian School in my book, Chalkboard Champions, available from amazon.

Talented Musician Conrad Johnson Chooses Career as a Music Educator Instead of Fame and Fortune

Many music teachers and jazz aficionados have probably heard of Conrad Johnson, Sr., a music educator from Houston, Texas. In addition to his role as a remarkable educator, Conrad was a phenomenal musician.

Conrad once played with the legendary Count Basie, and Erskine Hawkins once tried to persuade him to join his orchestra. Conrad declined the fame and fortune because he didn't want to leave his family or his give up teaching. "Conrad Johnson is one of Houston's unsung cultural heroes," says Rick Mitchell, former pop music critic for the Houston Chronicle. "He could have made a national name for himself with his two big bands. Instead he chose to devote his career to educating Houston's future musicians. He is retired from the school system, but he's still hard at work as an educator."

Born in Victoria, Texas, the young Conrad was nine years old when his family moved to the port city of Houston. After graduating from Yates High School, Conrad attended Houston College for Negroes, and then Wiley College in Marshall in eastern Texas, where he graduated in 1941. He started his career as a music educator at Kashmere High School that same year.

Conrad made a lasting contribution to music when he formed the Kashmere Stage Band, an internationally-known school orchestra that won a number of awards during its decade-long existence. His kids always called him "Prof." Under Prof's tutelage, the student musicians in the Kashmere Band won forty-two out of the forty-six competitions they entered between 1969 and 1977. They recorded eight albums featuring more than twenty original compositions by Conrad, and they went on tour throughout the United States, Japan, and Europe.

In 1978, following a thirty-seven-year career, Conrad retired from his position at Kashmere High School. In his retirement, he continued to remain active in shaping music in Houston by conducting summer programs and in-home tutoring. In 2000, the talented educator was inducted into the Texas Bandmasters Hall of Fame. The Conrad O. Johnson School of Fine Arts, a magnet school at Kashmere High School, is named after him. This wonderful teacher and musician passed away in 2008 at the age of 92.

Math Teacher and Youth Mentor Sheck Exley Was Also a Pioneer Scuba Diver

Sheck Exley was a teacher of advanced algebra and calculus at Suwanee High School in Live Oak, Florida. The man is better-known, however, for his pioneering work as a cave diver. He broke numerous world records in the sport, and was also a successful author on the subject. He published Basic Cave Diving: A Blueprint for Survival (1986) and Caverns Measureless to Man (2009), whose title was inspired by a phrase from the poem "Kubla Khan" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

This naturally-talented educator spent years training advanced divers, and those experiences fueled his passion for teaching. A popular teacher, he even posted his home number on the bulletin board and told his students they could call him day or night if they had trouble with their math homework. Before long, the kids were calling him with troubles that had nothing to do with differential equations. Over time Sheck became a mentor to adolescent boys who had brushes with the law or were on the verge of dropping out of school. One by one, he pulled them into the local karate club he founded, teaching them how to avoid trouble through physical and mental discipline, to take control of their lives, and to make better decisions.

Sadly, Sheck's own life story does not have a happy ending. He died while attempting to set a new world depth record in a cenote, or sinkhole, known as El Zacaton in Tamaulipas, Mexico, on April 6, 1994. He was only 45.

Union Organizer "Mother" Jones: A Remarkable Chalkboard Champion

One amazing chalkboard champion was teacher, dressmaker, and union organizer Mary Harris "Mother" Jones. This remarkable woman was born in 1837 in Cork City, County Cork, Ireland, the daughter of impoverished tenant farmers. She was just a teenager when her family immigrated to Canada to escape the Irish Potato Famine. Her family later moved to the United States.

All her life, Mary was passionate about the welfare of children and the underprivileged. Following her graduation from normal school at age seventeen, she became a schoolteacher, first at a convent in Monroe, Michigan, and later in Memphis, Tennessee. It was in Memphis that she met and married George E. Jones, an iron molder and union member. Tragically, the young schoolteacher lost her husband and all four of their children, all under the age of five, in the yellow fever epidemic of 1867. Next, Mary relocated to Chicago and established a dressmaking shop. Unfortunately, the workshop was destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.

Following the demise of her business, Mary began working as an organizer for the Knights of Labor and the United Mine Workers Union. She helped coordinate several major strikes, and she also co-founded the Industrial Workers of the World. Because she referred to the union members as "her boys," Mary was often referred to as "Mother" Jones. Mary gained fame for mobilizing the wives of striking coal miners to march with brooms and mops in an effort to block strikebreakers from crossing the picket lines.  In 1902, one American district attorney called her "the most dangerous woman in America" for her success in organizing mine workers and their families against the mine owners.

In 1903, Mary was greatly disturbed by the inadequate enforcement of child labor laws in mines and silk mills in Pennsylvania, so she organized one hundred youngsters in a Children's March from Kensington, Philadelphia, to the home of President Theodore Roosevelt in Oyster Bay, New York. In the procession, the children carried banners that proclaimed, "We want to go to school, and not the mines!"

Mary Harris Jones died in Adelphi, New York, on November 30, 1930, at the age of 93. She was buried in Union Miners Cemetery in Mount Olive, Illinois. Mary Harris "Mother" Jones Elementary School in Adelphi was named in her honor. This amazing former schoolteacher will always be remembered as a chalkboard champion.

Chalkboard Champion Joseph E. Miro Elected to the Delaware State Legislature

It should be no surprise that very often remarkable educators branch out into other spheres of endeavor. Such is the case with veteran teacher Joseph E.  Miro.

Joseph Miro was born on July 15, 1946, in Matanzas, Cuba. He graduated in 1970 from Lincoln University, and immediately accepted a position in the Wilmington School District in Wilmington, Delaware. Later he transferred to the Christina School District, also in Wilmington. He completed his master's degree at West Chester University in 1975. After a thirty year career, Joseph retired from the teaching profession in 2001.

Multitalented, Joseph was elected in 1998 to represent the 22nd District in the Delaware State House of Representatives, where he still serves. The Cuban American is a member of the legislative committees for education, appropriations, health and human development, and joint finance.

Kathleen Bonanno: The Poet and Chalkboard Champion

Sometimes our students (and their parents) forget that teachers are real people. We live, we laugh, we love, and we suffer, just like any other human being. Kathleen Sheeder Bonanno is a remarkable teacher who reminds the entire community that teachers live the full range of human experiences.

Kathleen Bonanno was born in Reading, Pennsylvania. She attended Temple University in Philadelphia, where she earned her bachelor's degree in English and her master’s degree in education. She taught at Dobbins High School in North Philadelphia for five years and Cheltenham High School in Wyncote, Pennsylvania, for the past seventeen years.

Like many educators, Kathleen is multi-talented. She is the author of an award-winning book of poetry entitled Slamming Open the Door ((2009), a volume which Library Journal described as "a stunning first book." Kathleen wrote the collection of poems following the gut-wrenching murder of her daughter, Leidy Bonanno, an abandoned child from Chile Kathleen and her husband adopted. Leidy was strangled in 2003 by a former boyfriend, just after her graduation from nursing school. The loss inspired Kathleen to become an advocate for victims’ rights and a member of the Montgomery Country Parents of Murdered Children. For her efforts, this amazing teacher and author was honored with a Women of Courage,Women of Inspiration Purple Ribbon Award from the Lutheran Settlement House in Philadelphia in 2008.

Teacher Margaret Clark Formby: The Champion of the Texas Cowgirl

Not many teachers can say they were also cowgirls, but one who can is Texas native Margaret Clark Formby. Margaret Formby was born in 1929 in Van Horn, Texas, near El Paso, the daughter of ranchers. She graduated from Van Horn High School in 1946, the salutatorian of her class. She went on to college at Texas Tech, earning her bachelor's degree in English and speech in 1950. Upon her graduation, she worked as a teacher at Hereford High School, before relocating to Fort Worth.

Growing up in a western environment, Margaret fought to have women recognized for their many contributions to western culture. She founded the National Cowgirl Hall of Fame and Western Heritage Center in Hereford, Deaf Smith County, in the basement of the public library. The museum was later moved to Fort Worth. Margaret also worked as the editor for the Cowgirl Hall of Fame magazine, Sidesaddle.

In addition to her cultural preservation efforts, Margaret labored tirelessly on behalf of young people. She was one of two women in the state who was named to a commission to investigate child pornography, and she also served on the Texas House Speaker's committee to research teen pregnancy.

Margaret earned many honors for her work. In 2000, her name was added  to the list of "100 That Made a Difference: History Makers of the High Plains" by the Amarillo Globe News.  She also received the Pioneer Woman Award from the American Cowboy Culture Society.

Margaret Formby passed away in 2003 at the age of 73. She will forever be remembered as a teacher who worked to preserve an important part of our western heritage.

The Original "Betty Crocker" Was an English Teacher

Betty Crocker was an icon of American housewifery in the 1950s, but did you know her image was actually that of Adelaide Hawley Cumming, an English teacher? This remarkable educator portrayed the fictional Betty Crocker on television in a half-hour show called The Betty Crocker Show, and she also starred in walk-on commercials on the Burns & Allen Show, where comedian George Burns would say to his wife, "I don't know how to bake a cake, Gracie, but here is Betty Crocker to show us how."

Adelaide was born in 1905 in Scranton, Pennsylvania. A vaudeville performer and broadcast pioneer, Adelaide majored in piano and voice at the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester, New York. Following her graduation from college, she taught music for two and a half years at the Alabama College School of Music in Montevallo, Alabama. From 1937 to 1950 she was the host of the Adelaide Hawley Program, first on NBC radio and then on CBS. At the height of her career, Adelaide was a nationally recognized figure, second only to First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. According to Adelaide's daughter, Marcia Hayes, the teacher/actress was a feminist in her private life, and was not especially fond of cooking. "I am merely the manifestation of a corporate image," she once told autograph-seeking fans. She practiced her autograph as Betty Crocker by copying the signature from the top of the cake mix box.

When General Mills replaced her with a more updated image in 1964, Adelaide went back to school, earning a doctorate in speech education from New York University in 1967. She taught English to second-language learners in Washington state until her death at age 93 in 1998, a career as an educator that spanned nearly thirty years.

Septima Poinsette Clark: Chalkboard Champion of the Civil Rights Movement

Septima Poinsette Clark, seen seated in the center of this group, was an integral part of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. Martin Luther King, Jr., often called her "The Mother of the Movement." In fact, this remarkable educator has earned the Martin Luther King, Jr., Award in 1970, the Living Legacy Award in 1979, and the Drum Major for Justice Award in 1987.

Septima was born in Charleston, South Carolina, on May 3, 1898. Her father was born a slave, and her mother, although born in Charleston, was raised in Haiti and never experienced slavery. After Septima graduated from high school in 1916, she didn't have the money to finance her college education. Nevertheless, she landed a position as an elementary teacher in a school for African American Gullah children on John's Island in South Carolina's Sea Islands. By 1919, Septima returned to Charleston to teach sixth grade at  Avery Normal Institute, a private academy for black children. Before long, Septima became involved with Charleston's NAACP, which inaugurated her involvement in civil rights activities. In the 1940s, Septima was finally able to return to school, taking summer school courses to earn her college degree. She earned her bachelor's degree from Benedict College and her masters from Hampton University.

In the 1950s  Septima found herself working at the Highlander Folk School in Monteagle, Tennessee. She was instrumental in combatting Jim Crow laws by organizing citizenship schools to teach underprivileged African Americans basic literacy skills, voter registration techniques, and the history of the Movement. At Highlander, Septima served as the director of workshops, trained teachers, and recruited students. One of the participants in her workshops was Rosa Parks. Shortly after participating in the Highlander workshops, Rosa helped launch the now-famous Montgomery Bus Boycott.

Septima Clark passed away on John's Island on December 15, 1987, of natural causes. The talented and dedicated teacher was 89 years old.

DeWayne Bunch: The Chalkboard Champion That Survived the Iraq War, But Not a Lunchroom Brawl

Chalkboard champion DeWayne Bunch was a teacher of mathematics and science at Whitley County High School in Williamsburg, Kentucky, for seventeen years. DeWayne was also a member of the Kentucky National Guard for twenty-three years, and had served as a first sergeant on a tour of duty in Iraq. His valor there earned him a Bronze Star. A multi-talented individual, DeWayne was elected in 2010 to the Kentucky State House of Representatives representing the 82nd District. As a legislator, he served on House committees for education, veterans' affairs, and transportation.

Sadly, DeWayne's story does not have a happy ending. One morning in 2011, a brawl between two students broke out in the school cafeteria. DeWayne was the first of three faculty members who rushed in to quell the fray. Unfortunately, DeWayne took a direct punch meant for another student, was knocked to the floor, and hit his head on the hard surface, described as "like slate." Suffering from severe head and spinal cord injuries, DeWayne was rushed to the nearest hospital. What followed was a year of extensive rehabilitative therapy, during which time DeWayne resigned his position in the Kentucky House of Representatives, and his wife, Regina Bunch, a special education teacher at Whitely County Middle School, was elected to fill his vacated position.

Sadly, DeWayne died as a result of his injuries just over a year later, on July 11, 2012. He was only 49 years old. Our country lost a true hero and chalkboard champion that day.

Rafe Esquith: A Chalkboard Champion who Teaches Like His Hair's On Fire!

One of the most creative and innovative educators of our day is Rafe Esquith, a fifth grade teacher in Los Angeles, California. This remarkable educator is also a sought-after motivational speaker and a successful author. His books include Teach Like Your Hair's On Fire (2007); There Are No Shortcuts (2003); Lighting Their Fires: Raising Extraordinary Children in a Mixed-up, Muddled-up, Shook-up World (2009); and Real Talk for Real Teachers: Advice to Teachers from Rookies to Veterans: "No Retreat, No Surrender!" (2013).

A California native, Rafe Esquith graduated from UCLA in 1981, and started his teaching career at Ivanhoe Elementary, an inner city school located in Los Angeles. Two years later he transferred to Hobart Blvd. Elementary School, where he has been a teacher since 1984. Rafe teaches students who come from impoverished and immigrant families, primarily from Central America and Korea. Most of his students speak English as a second language and are part of the government's free or reduced lunch program. Yet despite their challenges, Rafe's kids consistently score in the top 5% to 10% in the country on standardized tests. To achieve this, the students voluntarily come to school early in the morning, work through recesses, stay late, and give up their vacations and holidays to spend extra time in his class.

In recognition of Rafe's remarkable teaching talents, he has received many honors and awards. In 1992 Rafe received the Disney National Outstanding Teacher of the Year Award, and in 2003, he was given the President's National Medal of the Arts. He has also earned an As You Grow Award from Parents Magazine, and a Use Your Life Award from Oprah Winfrey.