HUTCHINSON, Kan. — With the 2015-16 school year winding down, three Hutchinson Public Schools staff members have received district honors.
Tammy Clark, Support Services secretary for maintenance, has been named Classified Employee of the Year. Candy Lawrence and Sheila Meggers have been nominated as the district’s entries in the Kansas National Teacher of the Year competition.
Still to be named are the Davis Teachers of the Year. The Davis Foundation will formally announce the finalists and the winners at the district’s back-to-school convocation on Aug. 12.
Classified Employee of the Year
For Tammy Clark, it’s all about family.
Even though she’s only spent the last 15 years in the district, Clark has been around the district her entire life. Clark started with the district in 2002 as kitchen manager at Hutchinson Middle School – 7. After three years, she became the Nutrition Services assistant. For the past decade, she has been in her current position as Support Services secretary for maintenance.
The staffer attended school in the district from the time she was in kindergarten at McCandless to the time she graduated from Hutchinson High School.
Clark’s mother, Shirley Swan, worked for the district from the time Clark was in third grade until she retired a few years ago. Her sister, Debbie Gideon-Long, also worked in the district for many years before retiring as kitchen manager at Lincoln.
Her son, Michael Clark, works in Nutrition Services for delivery and her daughter, Ashley Carson, works for Head Start at McCandless. Her other daughter and husband work at Spangles.
Much of her job, however, is not what many people would associate with secretarial duties. In fact, her office looks much more like a dispatch center than a typical secretary’s desk with monitors, radios and telephones.
“I never dreamed I’d be doing floor plans, making key cards and monitoring cameras,” Clark said. “There is a lot more to this job than you realize.”
No matter what happens, though, it all comes back to family.
“My family and then my job – that’s my priorities,” she said. “I never thought I’d have a job that I love to come to every day. Not a lot of people can say that.”
More than 30 classified staff members were nominated for the honor in 2015-16. The top 10 were: Terri Baumchen, Hutchinson Magnet School at Allen; Clark, SSC; Reggie Federicks, Avenue A; Marilyn Forbes, Faris; Robin Getting, Graber; Deb McCue, Hutchinson High School; Kylee Raleigh, the Hutcherson Center; Debbie Rippie, McCandless; Martin Vieyra, Graber; and Amy Weeks, Faris.
The Classified Council narrowed the list to three finalists – Baumchen, Clark and Raleigh.
Secondary National Teacher of the Year Nominee
A math teacher at HHS, Sheila Meggers is on her second stint in USD 308. Her first position in the district was as a vocal music teacher at Morgan from 1998 to the spring of 2000. She rejoined the district as a math teacher at HHS in the fall of 2007.
Not surprisingly, Meggers has taught students both as a music educator and as a math teacher. Music and math are complementary.
“I get a lot of students who are good in math who also are heavily involved in music,” she said. “There is a lot of research connecting the two.”
Meggers enjoys getting to know her students. Since she teaches a wide range of classes, she gets to work with many types of students. While she realizes most of her students won’t go on to be math majors, she does want them to be the best they can in math.
She also sees how education changes lives – including her own.
“No one in my family had gone to college,” she said. “Now my oldest is at KU in engineering. I see the difference it can make. My own kids don’t talk about ‘if I go to college.’ It’s about ‘when I go to college.’”
Meggers has received several awards in the past. She was a nominee for Davis Foundation Educator of the Year in 2012 and 2013 and won the award in 2013. She previously was a Kansas Teacher of the Year nominee in 2012. Additionally, she has been an HHS staff member of the month and was a Celebrate Academic Success with Hutchinson Credit Union in 2011.
“I always loved school,” she said. “I love learning new things.”
Elementary National Teacher of the Year Nominee
Candy Lawrence teaches kindergarten at Graber Elementary School. Every morning when she walks out the door and heads to Graber, Lawrence knows she will be singing and dancing her way through the day – literally.
“I get to sing and dance and act silly,” she said. “They (her students) get to play with me.”
While it may look like play and feel like play to her young students, it’s all about learning. Kindergarten is far more kinetic than what most adults remember. To keep students engaged, activities change often.
Lawrence has been with USD 308 since the 1999-2000 school year. She has served a wide range of classrooms during her tenure. She joined the district as a second grade teacher at Avenue A. After three years as a second grade teacher, she was a kindergarten teacher for eight years and then served two more years as a second grade teacher at Avenue A.
For the next three years, Lawrence taught sixth grade at Lincoln before returning to kindergarten at Graber.
“That’s where my heart is,” she said of the kindergarten classroom. “Kindergarten is a tremendous amount of work, but it’s a labor of love. Kindergarten is foundational. Students have to love learning.”
And kindergartners like to teach. Regularly, students will learn something in class, and Lawrence will challenge them to go home and teach it to their parents, which they willingly do.
Lawrence didn’t attend college immediately after high school. She got married and, when her youngest went to first grade, she started classes at Hutchinson Community College. From HCC she went to McPherson College, a move that really prepared her for the classroom because it was small, but provided a tremendous amount of accountability.
The educator has been nominated for Kansas Teacher of the Year several times and has been nominated as Davis Teacher of the Year four times and has been a finalist for that award.
