| ||||||||||
 
Dr. Ronald P. Rogers CHIROPRACTOR Support for your body's natural healing capabilities 270-384-5554 Click here for details 
  
Columbia Gas Dept. GAS LEAK or GAS SMELL Contact Numbers 24 hrs/ 365 days 270-384-2006 or 9-1-1 Call before you dig 
Visit ColumbiaMagazine's Directory of Churches Addresses, times, phone numbers and more for churches in Adair County Find Great Stuff in ColumbiaMagazine's Classified Ads Antiques, Help Wanted, Autos, Real Estate, Legal Notices, More... 
|
CU honors teachers in annual awards program By Joan C. McKinney Campbellsville, KY - Campbellsville University's 35th annual Excellence in Teaching Award Program honored 205 teachers throughout the Commonwealth of Kentucky from 72 districts and/or private schools. The teachers are selected by their school districts in each grade level (preschool/elementary, middle and high school). The Adair County award winners for 2021, announced earlier this spring, were: Tonya Feese, Adair County Primary Center; Adam Cox, Adair County Middle School; and Charles Thompson Jr., Adair County High School. Although the ceremony wasn't in person, a video was sent to each recipient with a welcome from Dr. Lisa Allen, dean of the School of Education, who thanked them for the job they do and their impact on students in the coming years. She said the teachers have become better at what they do as a result of the technology they learned and used, and she expected the teachers to just keep getting better. "Teachers are vital in the lives of students and families and society as a whole," she said.
Shad Lacefield, a 2007 Campbellsville University graduate, who is a fourth-grade teacher at Garden Springs Elementary School in Fayette County, and who has been featured on TV stations in Lexington due to his innovative teaching, was the guest speaker of the ceremony. He has taught in Kentucky, Missouri and China. Lacefield, wearing sunglasses and coveralls with the name Maverick on them from the movie "Top Gun," spoke of his teaching methods and his goal to make his students smile during the pandemic, which he said was hard on him, teachers, students and their parents. He said, "misquoting" Tom Cruise as Maverick in the movie, "I felt the need. The need to make kids smile." He dressed in different costumes each day (over 120 in all!) and presented lessons in costumes pertinent to his subject matter. He said the costumes didn't always work because students would smile while on Zoom, but when doing their independent work, the students weren't as excited. So, he relied on Darth Vader from Star Wars to help him. Dressed in a Darth Vader mask with a face mask underneath and in the black costume with his light saber, Lacefield decided to choose two students each Monday who had finished their work and turned it in for him to visit. He called his visits #vadervisits. At their home visit, he played whatever socially distanced game the students wanted, varying from rock climbing, roller skating, drawing with sidewalk chalk and playing Harry Potter themed yard Yahtzee, which he even created a custom scorecard for. He got those "miles of smiles" during those 50 Vader Visits. He said he missed those in-person smiles, and he decided he wanted to continue the costumes when in-person instruction began. His everyday costumes aren't as elaborate in person now, but he does show up once or twice a week in full costume to coordinate with the students' lessons. He urged the teachers to make the students smile in their classrooms to have a great culture and climate. "I encourage you to think of fun ways once a week to make your kids smile, and, if they are smiling, I know you as a teacher are smiling too," he said. He said teachers could have given the students one of the most awful and horrible memories of their educational experience but "I know the teachers watching this took time to make the best quality education we could give them. And for me, I'm going to think I was successful because of all those smiles." "I want to salute you and thank you for being a 'top gun' in your field. I want to thank you for all your hard work, I know your kids are going to remember you forever," he said. Lacefield has taught and coaches in kindergarten, first, second, fourth, seventh, eighth and ninth grades. He is the co-creator and director of the Do Something Extraordinary Golf Program in Lexington whose goal is to bring new experiences free of charge to low-income students in Title I schools, including free lessons, clubs and clothing. Since its creation in 2017, this after school club has grown from one school and 10 students to three schools and 40 students. Lacefield lives in Lexington with his wife, Whitney Morgan Lacefield, a 2008 Campbellsville University graduate, and with his three children: Hannah, Caleb and Ella, who have many costumes in their home. A total of 4,368 Kentucky teachers have been honored since the program began in 1987 with assistance from Earl Aaron and the Ward, Cundiff, and Aaron Memorial Fund. The purpose of the program is to recognize the quality teaching and learning taking place in the school systems throughout Kentucky. The Excellence in Teaching Awards program is in partnership with Lexington's CBS-affiliate, WKYT-TV. This story was posted on 2021-07-19 11:03:01
Printable: this page is now automatically formatted for printing.
Have comments or corrections for this story? Use our contact form and let us know. More articles from topic Campbellsville University:
CU and THP to offer 2nd round of summer theater camps Howell makes donation toward Clay Hill Memorial Forest Little Shop of Horrors to be presented by CU Theater CU Jr. Kids College returns in 2021 Hannah Rash named assistant director of admissions Campbellsville University Dean's List for Spring Semester 2021 CU President's List for Spring Semester 2021 TRH CEO honored with Algernon Sydney Sullivan Award CU 2021 Honors and Awards Day CU: Mobley honored with Algernon Sydney Sullivan Award View even more articles in topic Campbellsville University |
 
115 Jamestown St. Columbia, KY. 270-384-2496 
  
   
 Provided by the Adair Co Fiscal Court and the Adair Co. Emergency Mgt. Agency 
|
||||||||
|
| ||||||||||
|
Quick Links to Popular Features
Looking for a story or picture? Try our Photo Archive or our Stories Archive for all the information that's appeared on ColumbiaMagazine.com. | ||||||||||
|
Contact us: Columbia Magazine and columbiamagazine.com are published by Linda Waggener and Pen Waggener, PO Box 906, Columbia, KY 42728. Please use our contact page, or send questions about technical issues with this site to webmaster@columbiamagazine.com. All logos and trademarks used on this site are property of their respective owners. All comments remain the property and responsibility of their posters, all articles and photos remain the property of their creators, and all the rest is copyright 1995-Present by Columbia Magazine. Privacy policy: use of this site requires no sharing of information. Voluntarily shared information may be published and made available to the public on this site and/or stored electronically. Anonymous submissions will be subject to additional verification. Cookies are not required to use our site. However, if you have cookies enabled in your web browser, some of our advertisers may use cookies for interest-based advertising across multiple domains. For more information about third-party advertising, visit the NAI web privacy site.
| ||||||||||
