Students and faculty members honored eight local teachers during the Stand for Children Day and Teacher of the Year celebration on Saturday.
The 16th annual event spotlights Pahrump’s finest teachers in the southern attendance area.
Master of Ceremonies Linda Fitzgibbons said the teachers were selected by their peers through a voting process where the top teacher from each school is nominated.
“Each school may do it slightly differently because we just send the notice to the schools and the schools decide what they are going to do to nominate a teacher,” she said. “No matter which school it is, the teachers are chosen by their peers.”
Floyd Elementary School Resource Specialist Lori Metscher made certain to share the accolade with her staff.
Metscher began teaching in Pahrump in 1994 at J.G. Johnson Elementary.
“The staff I worked with this year made this award possible,” she said. “We worked as a team and with each other’s support, we succeeded. It is a great honor to be recognized by my peers, I am so lucky to work with such fantabulous people. Thank you to all.”
Hafen Elementary second grade teacher Lyndee Presgrove has taught Nye County students for more than three decades after earning a degree in elementary education.
“I am honored to be selected as teacher of the year at Hafen Elementary,” she said. “I was very surprised, because I make it a practice to do what needs to be done in order for my students to be successful in life. We all need a helping hand at times, and if I was able to be a resource, I have done my part. I have enjoyed working for Nye County School District these past thirty years.”
Manse Elementary first grade teacher Theresa Linner also has more than 30 years in the classroom. A UNLV graduate, she too was honored by the distinction.
“I work with a great bunch of teachers and have a great principal, but most of all are our awesome students,” she said. “Manse also has terrific parents. I really enjoy teaching first graders and love when they realize they can do things without my help, which makes me feel so accomplished.”
Alan Chenevert, who has been with the district since 2005, teaches special education and history at Pathways.
Chenevert has worked as a National Association of Securities Dealers certified stockbroker and spent four years in the U.S. Army as a counter-intelligence agent.
“Pathways has always been a very special place for me to teach,” he said. “We take in many students who have had little or no success elsewhere in this district, or have chronic health or emotional problems, and provide them with a measure of independence, personal growth, and academic success. We’re lucky at Pathways to have very experienced teachers, a superlative administrator, and a hard-working support staff. I can’t imagine a better school at which to be a teacher.”
Pahrump Valley High’s Daleena Craig earned a master’s degree from UNLV in curriculum and instruction.
She said she was surprise to earn the award.
“I’ve aspired to be selected as Teacher of the Year, but it’s not something I ever thought I would get,” she said. “Although my students make me feel popular as I walk around the school, it has more weight that my colleagues voted for me, since many of them have never been in my classroom to see how I operate.”
Teaching middle school is what Jeff Hammar prefers. The Rosemary Clarke Middle eighth grade history and social studies teacher earned a history degree from Brigham Young University.
“I love teaching at the middle school level with its challenges and adventures,” he noted in his bio. “For the past four years I have enjoyed taking students to Washington D.C. to enrich their knowledge to this great nation in which we live.”
Community Christian Academy first grade teacher Tracy Wright is in her third year at the school. Her initial reaction upon learning she was selected was astonishment.
“I was very, very surprised because there’s so many deserving teachers here,” she said. “It was just very humbling.”
J.G. Johnson Elementary’s Pam Hooker was also honored for her accomplishments in the classroom, but was unavailable for comment.
Roughly 80 guests attended the ceremony, where students would perform musical dance and entertainment routines between teacher recognitions throughout the program.
Each teacher was escorted by a student who provided testimonials about their educator.
“I was really pleased when every single one of our teachers also had something to say afterwards and all of their speeches were very heartwarming,” Fitzgibbons said.
Fitzgibbons said the history of the celebration started as a program of the St. Martin’s in the Desert Episcopal Church. Last year, the church decided to discontinue the event after the original organizers moved out of state.
“NyE Communities Coalition realized the importance of this particular event,” she said.
Fitzgibbons also said the coalition had little time to organize the event this year.
“We kind of put it all together in 3 weeks,” she said. “We all took a job and each one of us was in charge of doing one thing or another and we were able to get it done.”
Fitzgibbons also expressed an interest in expanding the celebration to include teachers in the northern Nye County attendance area.
“There are many qualified and well deserving teachers in the northern attendance area,” she said. “Now that it’s a coalition project, I have a hunch that maybe next year it will go district wide.”