1975 Award Winners

Biographies below were included in the program for the year listed here and were current as of that time.

Rozella K. Caldwell Swisher

Geography and Ethnic Studies Teacher

Northeast Junior High School

USD 500 Kansas City Kansas

An abiding interest in the development of human relations has led to many varied activities and many honors for Rozella K. Caldwell Swisher, geography and ethnic studies teacher at Northeast Junior High School, Kansas City, Kansas.

Mrs. Swisher, whose teaching career began at Northeast in 1934, introduced her Ethnic Culture curriculum in 1969. She has carried her students and their studies far beyond the classroom and has provided local and state leadership in the development of human relations and Black history. With her guidance, the Kansas City program has become a model for programs throughout the state of Kansas and the United States. Founder of the Ralph Bunche chapter, Future Teachers of America, Mrs. Swisher has been advisor of the group for the past 16 years. She has also served as faculty chairman for the PT A at the school for 35 years.

Mrs. Swisher has always encouraged the development of Student Aid for Education and has been active in several scholarship programs. Through her efforts the 1971 Summer in Paris program, which sent the Sumner High School Jazz Band to the International Jazz Band Festival in Paris, was a success. She served as the 1974 coordinator of Kansas City, Kansas, Festival of Progress.

Activities with the Future Teachers of America, have led to many honors. Among those are the Rozella K. Caldwell Swisher Scholarship, established in 1973 by the Seventh Grade Phi Chapter of the National Junior Honor Society; the Dr. W. C. Wood Award, given by her college, Kansas State College of Pittsburg, and Kansas City Kansas NEA Master Teacher Award in 1968-69.

Actively involved in the African Methodist Episcopal Church , she has a Missionary Certificate and is Director of Religious Education at St. Luke's AME Church. Life memberships in the YWCA, the National Association of Colored Women's Clubs, and PTA are among the many organizations she belongs to.

She has worked with Dr. Dudley Cornish , chairman of the history department at Pittsburg, on developing resource material for teaching contributions of Negros in American history. Mrs. Swisher and her husband, Laurence, a biology teacher at Manual High School, live in Kansas City, Mo.

Betty Dutton

Learning Resources Teacher

USD 417 Morris County

Education is a way of life for Betty Lorraine Dutton . Alta Vista. " It always has been," she says, "and always will be."

"Each child has a right to be accepted as he is and to move forward from there at his own unique pace-challenged but not frustrated ," says this Learning Resources Teacher from U.S.D. /1417 who serves elementary schools in Council Grove, Dwight, Wilsey and Alta Vista.

Mrs. Dutton, whose teaching career spans the years from the one-room country school in Wabaunsee County, where she began teaching on a Normal Training Certificate, through 13 years at Alta Vista Elementary School, and finally to Washington Elementary School, Council Grove, where she has been instrumental in the development of the Appropriate Placement Concept for grades kindergarten through fourth, and then in 1974 to her new position as a learning resource specialist.

"Mrs. Dutton has always enthusiastically pursued a never-ending search for new roads into youngster's minds," one school board member says.

A graduate of Emporia State College with both a bachelor's degree and a master's in education. Mrs. Dutton has done all of her college work in night classes and during the summer session. She has completed 20 hours beyond her master's and plans to continue her work this summer toward a permanent certificate in Learning Disabilities.

An active member of Alpha Theta chapter of Delta Kappa Gamma, Chapter 11318, Order of the Eastern Star, Morris County Association for Retarded Citizens. Council of Exceptional Child ren , Department of Children with Learning Disabilities, Mrs. Dutton was awarded the Certificate of Professional Acceptance conferred by the NEA, K-NEA and her local Education Association in 1968. In 1969, she received the 25 year service award as a teacher of youth from the University of Kansas School of Education.

She and her husband, Wesley W. Dutton. have always been active in community activities. They have one son Wes, also a teacher. He is now with the Kansas State Department of Vocational Rehabilitation, Topeka.

Vernon Hastert

Business Teacher, Football, Basketball and Track Coach

Ulysses High School

USD 214 Ulysses

Vernon Hastert, Ulysses, was the first person in his family ever to graduate from college-and he has made education his business. A 1963 Business Education graduate of Emporia State College, he taught one year at Roosevelt High School, Emporia, and completed his Masters degree in business education in 1964.

Since 1964 he has been business teacher, football, basketball and track coach at Ulysses High School. During the years, he has worked for curriculum change and last year implemented a work-study program for senior business students.

"The work-study program allows students to gain valuable work experience with on the job training while earning wages and credit through the school and the program also stimulates a tremendous amount of good public relations between the community and school system," educators and community businessmen in Ulysses agree.

Hastert's interest in work-study programs is a result of his own educational program which has been financed completely through scholarships, grants and self-support. In addition to teaching and coaching duties, Hastert is active in the Ulysses community. He serves on the City Parks and Recreation Board, is executive secretary of the Softball Association and has been the Grant County Teacher's Association representative to the Chamber of Commerce, serving two years on the education committee.

He is serving a third term as Grand Knight of the Knights of Columbus Council and is responsible for the Tootsie Roll program which raises money for the mental retardation centers in Kansas. Through the Knights of Columbus, Hastert has helped to sponsor a Cinco de Mayo Fiesta for the Mexican-Americans of the Ulysses community and implemented a T-ball program for boys too young for the baseball league. He is the 1974-75 Ulysses Junior Chamber of Commerce nominee for Outstanding Young Educator.

Long active in professional associations, Hastert is serving as a co-chairman of the professional negotiations committee of the Grant County Teachers Association. He has been president of the local association and has just completed four years of service on the Board of Directors of the Kansas NEA. He has served six years as a delegate to the state representative assembly and three years as a delegate to the National Education Association representative assembly. In 1974, he served on a committee to evaluate the handbook published through the State Department of Education for the Kansas Business Teachers Association.

J. Paul Jewell

Instructor of Economics and History of Civilization

Kansas City, Kansas, Community College

A moving force in organizing the faculties of Kansas' 19 community junior colleges, J. Paul Jewell, Instructor of Economics and History of Civilization at Kansas City, Kansas, Community College, carries his activities far beyond the classroom.

As president of the Junior College Faculty Association for five years, he was instrumental in making it an effective organization. He was also one of the organizers of the new KNEA state-wide junior college local 600 and served as its president.

A member of the Board of Directors of the Kansas Association of Public Community Junior Colleges, composed of trustees, administrators, faculty and students, and the Professional Standards Board of the State Department of Education, he was awarded an Outstanding Educator of America Award in 1970.

A 1947 graduate of Kansas State College of Pittsburg, he joined the faculty of Kansas City, Kansas, Junior College that year as an instructor in economics and history. During his years as an instructor he has also been Director of Student Activities. From this post, he helped organize the first student union, the first college-owned bookstore and student parking lot at KCKC.

Jewell, seeing a critical need for student government, organized and sponsored the Student Government Body and was its advisor tor 15 years. He worked tor and secured recognition of community college student government equal to that of four-year institutions from the National Association of Student Government.

An active participant in the affairs of the Kansas City community, he has been supervisor and director of summer recreation programs and both teacher and principal of a summer school program for accelerated high school students.

He serves as a member of the Executive Committee of the Citizens Advisory Committee and has organized the History and Culture of Wyandotte County for the Wyandotte County History Society. For this effort he was given the Golden Key to the City of Kansas City, Kansas, by Mayor Richard Walsh.

Jewell has also participated in the Kansas Humanities Series sponsored by Donnelly College, Kansas City, Kansas, and is active in the Chelsea Neighborhood Community Organization. He serves his church, The First Central Church of the Brethren, as moderator, teacher and choir member, and is a member of the Board of Trustees of McPherson College.

Marion Klema

Social Studies Instructor

Salina North Junior High School

USD 305 Salina

A junior high school social studies instructor who practices what she teaches, Marion Klema, Salina, believes that the best way to learn American history and government is through experience.

Students who reminisce about her 34 years at Salina's North Junior High usually remember taking part in a mock election or walking the streets of Salina taking a poll for history class-or they remember the weekly current event quizzes.

Involvement isn't just a classroom word for Miss Klema. Long active in NEA-Salina, as well as educational organizations on the state and national level, The American Association of University Women, Delta Kappa Gamma, Phi Beta Kappa, she was awarded Marymount College's Nazareth-Marymount Alumni Award for Distinguished Service to her community and the NEA-Salina Master Teacher Award in 1974. She is a Ruling Elder on the official governing board of the First Presbyterian Church. In 1968, she was the recipient of the Daughters of Colonial Wars Teacher Award.

As one colleague said, "Her community relies upon her concern, judgment and character and has appointed her to numerous positions including her current service on the Human Rights Commission of Salina. Her involvement and her subsequent recognition makes an almost endless list."

A graduate of Marymount College, Salina, with a Master's Degree from the University of Kansas, Miss Klema began her teaching career in Salina in 1944. She previously taught at Marion and at Hanover. An active participant in all sorts of community affairs, Miss Klema is serving as a consultant to the Salina Bi-centennial Commission. She has done the research in early Salina landmarks that will be depicted in an original needlepoint wallhanging and has organized and is serving as chairperson of the Bicentennial Oral History Committee.

Ernest Nelson

Biology Teacher

Pittsburg Senior High School

USD 250 Pittsburg

"Do the best job possible from day to day and try to be an example to young minds by stressing the importance of doing the very best you can do." This is the motto that has guided Ernest Nelson through 35 years of teaching in Linn, Bourbon, Allen, Miami and Crawford counties.

At the end of the 1974-75 academic year, Mr. Nelson will retire from his position as biology teacher at Pittsburg Senior High School where he has been since 1960.

During his years as general science and mathematics teacher at Lakeside Junior High School in Pittsburg, a position he held for eight years, he was active in the Science Fairs sponsored by Kansas State College of Pittsburg. At that time he was awarded a trophy for the sponsor with the largest number of winning entries in the Science Fair. Since 1960 he has been active in Junior Academy work and several of his students have been selected to present papers at the Kansas Junior Academy.

A graduate of KSCP with a Master of Science Degree, Mr. Nelson has always been active professionally. He has served as a delegate to both the National Education Association and the National Teachers' Association. He received the Pittsburg Education Association 's past-president's award and is a life member of the PT A.

His activities also spread far beyond the classroom. Mr. Nelson was instrumental in the organization of Pittsburg's YMCA Teen Town program, has served as program director of the Pittsburg YMCA and Camp Wood as well as the Kansas Baptist Youth Camp at Fredonia.

He is an active member of the First Baptist Church and has served terms on the Board of Deacons and the Board of Christian Education. He also teaches junior high Sunday School classes. He and his wife, Mildred , have two children and six grandchildren.

Irma Teichgraeber

Language Arts Department Chairman

Chapman High School

USD 473 Chapman

"She teaches Kids-not stuff," is a characterization of the extraordinary effectiveness of Irma Teichgraeber, Chapman, in the classroom.

"I am committed to the philosophy that the student comes before the subject matter and that he must become involved to learn; therefore the process is far more important than achieving an arbitrary objective. I believe that classroom activities should be structured, that the student should know why he is asked to participate in an assignment, and that students and teacher should consider the results," Mrs. Teichgraeber says.

Mrs. Teichgraeber, who has served 20 years in the teaching profession and 18 in Chapman, has taught drama, forensics, English and debate there. Her present assignment as Language Arts Department Chairman includes classes in English Ill.

Long active in the Kansas Association of Teachers of English, she is currently president of the organization. She is also State Secondary Representative on the Executive Board of the Kansas Conference on English Education and was a Kansas Voting Director at the National Council of Teachers of English in 1974.

Student writing has long been one of the high points of Mrs. Teichgraeber's teaching. Her students keep journals and are encouraged to do original writing. Chapman high school students have been represented in Young Kansas Writers, a magazine of creative writing by students, since its beginning in 1968. Five students under her guidance have been named by the National Council of Teachers of English as one of the ten Kansas winners cited annually.

As active outside the classroom as inside, Mrs. Teichgraeber was co-editor of Young Kansas Writers from 1968 to 1972. She was also a Workshop Leader at the Regional Conference of the National Conference of Teachers of English in 1972 and 1974. She is also a past president of the Chapman Teachers' Association and a delegate to the National Education Association in 1969.

A graduate of Kansas State College of Pittsburg , Mrs. Teichgraeber holds a Master's Degree from Kansas State University. She is a member of Sigma Sigma Sigma sorority, Chapter CZ of PEO and the Scherer Memorial Lutheran Church.

She and her husband, Chapman grain man George Teichgraeber, have three sons, John, Louisville, Ky.; Tom, Sioux City, Iowa. and Joe, a 1974 graduate of the University of Kansas School of Medicine, presently serving an internship in Omaha, Neb., and four grandchildren.