Founders Day Awards

PTA Life Membership Award winners Suzanne Doler, Pamela Wike and David Davenport

A Meadow Wood Elementary art teacher, three SBISD Council of PTAs members, and 125 parents who served on 24 campus PTAs received special awards during the council’s recent Founders Day Dinner. The Spring Branch Education Foundation (SBEF) also presented a $10,000 check to support student and teacher scholarships.

Guest speakers for the annual dinner, held Feb. 5, were SBISD Superintendent of Schools Duncan Klussmann; Housman Elementary fourth-grade teacher Cindy Woods, a past recipient of a council scholarship; and Warren Matthews, the council’s scholarship chair and a SBEF officer.

The dinner was held at Northbrook High School. Proceeds benefit the council’s scholarship fund for graduating seniors and teachers. Founders Day celebrates the February 1897 founding of PTA in Washington, D.C.

SBEF Chair Gary Junek and Director Cece Thompson presented the $10,000 scholarship check, which will pay out $7,000 to graduating seniors and $3,000 to district teachers later this spring.

School Bell Award winner Julia Rowland of Meadow Wood Elementary

Named recipient of the council’s 2007-2008 School Bell Award was Meadow Wood Elementary art teacher Julia Rowland. As a new teacher, Julia, 28, worked with students, parents and community members to help design, paint and then fire 1,300 ceramic tiles during development of Meadow Wood’s Spark Park. The new campus park was dedicated in December under the theme “United We Stand.”

The School Bell Award is a personally engraved brass school bell. The SBISD Council of PTAs presents the award each year to an outstanding educator who promotes the objectives of the PTA and is an advocate for all children.

Julia, who is now pursuing a master’s degree, is a graduate of Hunters Creek Elementary, Spring Branch Middle and Memorial High schools. A graduate of Sweet Briar College in Sweet Briar, Va., she was also a student teacher at Memorial Middle and Rummel Creek Elementary schools.

“Spring Branch is the only school district where I applied to teach. I think that it is the best public school system in the region, and the fine arts are strongly supported in this district,” she said. Julia calls it “overwhelming” to be nominated by Meadow Wood parents. She was shocked to be chosen over so many other nominees. “When they started talking about our Spark Park at the dinner, I said, ‘No way!’”

In 2006, she joined the Spark Park’s design team art subcommittee as a “rookie” teacher. Last summer, Julia worked during summer vacation to fire tiles in the school’s unpredictable kiln, since replaced. Student art is a major design feature of the community park.

“She never complained or lost her enthusiasm even when confronted with the reality of 1,300 ceramic art tiles, which had to be designed, painted, fired in a quirky old kin and installed by the construction deadline, while at the same time being responsible for how the art would actually fit into the project,” her PTA nomination states.

The 13 other School Bell Award nominees this year were Tara Filla of Woodview Elementary, Michelle Darnell of Spring Forest Middle, Linda Beth Cain of Bendwood School, Patti Portice of Valley Oaks Elementary, Judy Drilling of Sherwood Elementary, Katherine Kyle of Bunker Hill Elementary Ana Vazao of Pine Shadows Elementary, Arlene Reynolds of Westwood Elementary, Cindy Maiorana of Terrace Elementary, Lisa Davis of Rummel Creek Elementary, Lynne Luberger of Hunters Creek Elementary, Jennifer McMurtrey of Memorial Middle, and Debbie Palkot of Wilchester Elementary.

In separate Founders Day news, PTA officers Suzanne Doler, Pamela Wike and David Davenport received the Texas PTA Life Membership Award from the council for their leadership work. In addition to years of campus and district leadership, Suzanne, Pamela and David helped open new PTAs this year at Landrum Middle and Woodview and Thornwood elementary schools. Together, they serve as the council’s Mentoring Committee team to schools that need help in start-up organizing.

“Receiving a Texas PTA Life Membership Award at the Council level not only signifies that you are an involved parent at your home school, but that you play a major leadership role in all schools throughout our community,” PTA Council President Diane Swan said during the dinner. “Suzanne Doler, Pamela Wike and David Davenport exemplify these qualities.”

Suzanne and Pamela were also cited for helping obtain a council grant through SBEF that led to translation of the Texas PTA Handbook into Spanish, a first. For this, the Council of PTAs earned a Golden Achievement Award last year from the Texas Association of Partners in Education, or TAPE.

Suzanne began her PTA involvement at Pine Shadows Elementary. She has been involved at the council level for several years. She is now membership vice president. She also serves on SBISD’s Bond Oversight Committee. “We have one common goal – the kids! It’s been really fun this year to go out into schools and see the excitement of the new PTAs. We really believe that we’re one big family,” she said.

Pamela has served on the Memorial Middle, Westchester Academy and Stratford High PTAs. She currently serves as council parliamentarian, was a Bond Advisory Committee member, and represented the council recently on a children’s health committee sponsored by The University of Texas School of Public Health.

David Davenport has been a PTA parent at Hunters Creek Elementary, Spring Branch Middle and Memorial High schools He has served for several years as chair of the council’s legislative, candidates’ forum, and scholarship selection and funding chair groups. Council treasurer for the past two years, David serves as a key contact on finances or sales tax issues for many PTAs.

David and his wife, Elaine, were named SBISD Volunteers of the Month last April. Family members sponsor a council scholarship in memory of a district employee each year.

“Getting an award for something that you really like to do is doubly rewarding,” he said. “We’d like to invite parents, teachers and staff at schools without PTAs to contact us.” The council has set a next-year goal of forming PTAs in all Spring Branch schools.

In separate action, more than 100 people were honored as 2007 Life Member Award recipients.
AWARDS LIST The Life Member Award is one of the highest honors given by the Texas PTA. It recognizes outstanding contribution to the organization’s mission.

The Extended Service Award was given to four Spring Branch residents who have remained actively involved for 10 years or more. They are Lisa Agnew and Fran Marintsch, both of Stratford High’s PTA; Sherry Cooper of Memorial Drive Elementary; and Karen Kiappes of Spring Branch Middle.

For more information about the SBISD Council of PTAs, contact Diane Swan at 281-493-6713 or visit the council website at www.springbranchisd.com/partners/pta/pta.htm.

posted 02-25-08

2007 Life Membership Awards

Elementary Schools

Bendwood: Andree Staff, Ingrid Monroy
Bunker Hill: Tracy Curry, Shelly Levy, Helen Morris, Christine Phifer, Valerie Sikora, Martha Johnson, Karen Magee, Nancy Nowlan, Anne Roland, Nancy Wahl
Cedar Brook: Yesenia Herrerra Merchan, Susan Newton
Edgewood: Lynne Barry, Yolanda Rodriguez, Sandra Solis
Frostwood: Mary Kemick, Sue Marnitz, Martha Navarro, Joyce Pelton, David Standifer, Virginia Wilson
Hunters Creek: Sally Giammalva, Debbie Robinson, Felicia Baker, Carrie Allen, Dr. Claire Daum, Shanna Hetherwick
Meadow Wood: Jennifer Bradshaw, Judy Dean, Shirley Labiosa, Kerrin Philli9ps, Amy Watkins, Karla White
Memorial Drive: Marcy Canady, Kate Stoll, Mary Jo Kellagher, Margo Cunningham, Peggy Duncan, Bernadette Prakash
Nottingham: Becca Skelly, Mary Duncan, Maricruz Garcia, Cleo Wareham, Vernon Phillips
Rummel Creek: Susan Swank, Kathleen Smith, Stephanie Olin, Lisa Davis, Pamela House, Karen Ross, Gary Higginbotham, Mary Cole, Leanne Scott, Carol Mather, Susan Griffin
Sherwood: Dora Zuniga, Elizabeth Imrie
Terrace: Saadeh Abualtin, Sandy Dimel, Carolina Martinez, Peggy Knips, Jamie Sheblak
Valley Oaks: Stephanie Dunn, Patricia Escobar, Janet Nelson, Melanie Whatley, Rene Allcorn, Lisa Trammell
Westwood: Aimee Thompson, Kim Keefe, Victor Resendiz
Wilchester: Andree Stagg, Leann Newton, Michele Foster, Rebecca Osborn

Middle Schools

Cornerstone Academy: Maurine Richter, Kathleen Grant, Kim Scott, Lynne Redding, Brent Favor
Memorial: Sheri Lathrop, Kathy Luck, Cindy Balderach, Susan Bourdon, Judy Curran, Kim Robinson, Judi Lindahl, Diane Patterson, Leslie Kottwitz
Spring Branch: Sandy Blackwell, Caroline Compton, Suzanne Harter, Allison Mantor, Carol Vartian, William Ivins, Kenneth Pelzman
Spring Forest: Tana Jefferson, Karla White, Ro Luecken, Sonia Porter
Spring Oaks: Karin Byrnes, Betsy Foye, Carol Lisch, Diane Ozan, Dr. David Sablatura

High Schools

Memorial: Susan Hayes, Blair Heitkamp, Darci Hubbard, Janice James, B. McCallum, Amy Richards, Coach Rene Rosales
Spring Woods: Terri Heideman, Diana Apsey
Stratford: Amy Davis, Officer Brad Farley, Denise Howard, Laura Miller, Michael Strait, Carol Surles
Westchester Academy: Sharon Boutwell, Juergen Mueller, Amanda (Mandy) Simons