2007-08 First Class Members

Don Betts, director of the Carrie Lane Alternative School in Charles City, has been named 2008 educator of the Year by the Iowa Association of Alternative Education.

A number of ISEA members have been honored with the 2008 Gold Star Award for Outstanding Teaching by the R.J. McElroy Trust and KWWL Television. Winners from Dubuque county are: Diane Callahan, Western Dubuque High School; Terry Gross, Eleanor Roosevelt Middle School; Tara Noonan, Cascade Elementary School; Carol Schmitt, Table Mound Elementary School; and JoAnne Uthe-Gibson, Dubuque Senior High School. Winners from Black Hawk County are: Sandra Baade, Southdale Elementary School; Sherri Gabbard, Longfellow Elementary; Ruth Koltookian, Holmes Junior High School; Ken Murphy, Edison Elementary School; and Deidra Noborikawa; East High School.

Vicki Goshen, a special education teacher at Cedar Heights Elementary School in Cedar Falls, has won the Learning Disabilities Association of America's prestigious Sam Kirk Educator of the Year Award for 2008.

The ISEA's East Central UniServ Unit has honored three members for their exemplary teaching and service to the Association with the Member of the Year award. They are Chris Shope and Cindy Kunde of Iowa City and Larry Gardemann of Vinton-Shellsburg. John Meskimen of Iowa City was named Educator of the Year.

Four ISEA members from southwest Iowa have been honored with the H.H. "Red" and Ruth H. Nelson Family Foundation Excellence in Teaching Award which includes $5,000 and a trophy. They are Linda Hahn of Lewis Central and Al Hudek, Mary Reid, and Joan VonTersch-Crampton of Council Bluffs.

Karen Bourne, a music teacher at Sioux City's Irving Elementary School, has received a $2,000 Learning and Leadership Grant from the NEA Foundation.

Association activist Doug Brightman, a fourth-grade teacher at Fort Dodge, was honored with The Golden Apple Award sponsored by WHO-TV and Allied Insurance.

Carolyn Kingland-Hanson of Hampton-Dumont also received The Golden Apple Award sponsored by WHO-TV and Allied Insurance.

Long-time ISEA leader and retired teacher from Dike, Stan Van Hauen has been named chairman of the Iowa Northland Regional Council of Governments. He is currently a member of the Dike City Council.

Karen Downing, a high school language arts teacher in West Des Moines, is one of only three teachers nationwide to be named as a Road Scholar Educator of the Year by the educational adult travel organization Elderhostel. She will receive $2,000 to study the migratory pattern of gray whales in Mexico.

In addition to being named a runner-up in the ISEA's Excellence in Education Award program, Rhonda Baker of Scranton Elementary School received the Stephen Tsai Award for Excellence in Autism Education from the Autism Society of Iowa.

Des Moines elementary teachers Kris Morine and Sharon Campbell had searched in vain for a bright, eye-catching book for young children to go along with their science curriculum, so they created one themselves! The two wrote and illustrated From Dirt to Showers, How Seeds Become Flowers, a delightful story designed to go hand-in-hand with a project where students plant seeds and care for the seedlings as they grow.

Donna Rickers, a fourth- and fifth-grade English teacher in the Ar-We-Va School District, was named Wal-Mart's 2007 Iowa Teacher of the Year.

An anti-war play written by Kent Mick, a history teacher at Garner-Hayfield High School, has been published in London and has recently been performed in Canada.

Robert Sessions, a philosophy and humanities professor at Kirkwood Community College, has been awarded the 2007 Distinguished Humanities Educator Award by the Community College Humanities Association.

A family and consumer sciences teacher at Central Campus in Des Moines, Alison Arnold was awarded a $2,000 grant as part of the ING Unsung Heroes program to help fund her work to prevent teen pregnancy.

Kris Mesicek of Des Moines has been certified by the American Grant Writers' Assoociation. Over the years, she has been instrumental in the Des Moines School District receiving nearly $51 million in funding.

Luann Swanson of the Pekin Community Schools has been named the Elementary Physical Education Teacher of the Year for 2007 by the Iowa Association of Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance.

Carol Dorsey of Schuler Elementary School in Atlantic has been named the Atlantic Wal-Mart Store's Teacher of the Year.

Hempstead High School math teacher Claudette Bees was honored last spring as the 2007 Teacher of the Year in Dubuque.

Larry Niemeyer, Cedar Rapids Jefferson softball coach, has chalked up 1,901 victories in his legendary career-a state and national record!

Special education teacher Shirley Eyres has been honored as 2007 Central Lee Community School District Teacher of the Year.

Esther Schmitz, a special education teacher at Lenox Elementary School, has been named Wal-Mart Teacher of the Year for the Creston area.

Maxine Barrows, a family and consumer sciences instructor at Holmes Junior High in Cedar Falls, was recently honored as the 2007 Iowa Family and Consumer Sciences Teacher of the Year.

Kimberly Heckart, a third-grade teacher at Prairie Ridge Elementary School in the College Community School District, has been named Iowa History Teacher of the Year by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History and Preserve America.

Jessica Gogerty of North High School in Des Moines, and Justin Heckman of Lincoln High School in Council Bluffs have been named as finalists for the Presidential Awards for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching.