Her students are always engaged and although she has 27 years in the classroom, she is not stagnant. She constantly looks for innovative ways to improve mathematics lessons and relate those lessons to her students’ lives.

Marianne is always ready to take on a challenge and can teach students who are on various ability levels, be it her experimental boys-only Math Models class or her Pre AP Algebra II classes. Her manner with students is so natural and friendly that her students have said she made learning seem “effortless, easy and fun.”

Marianne Varner is engaging to her students and works hard to make sure that the best interests of students and faculty are forefront.

For Martin’s Teacher of the Year I ask that you honor Marianne Varner for her devotion to making our school better.

-Dan Regalado

This is a hard decision. I know there are a lot of great teachers here at Martin. Being the math adjunct last year gave me an opportunity a lot of teachers do not get. I got to personally see inside teachers’ classrooms and watch them work their magic!

One that stuck out to me the most last year and again this year would be Linda Somerhalder. Last year she had to be absent for a little bit due to a family issue. Even though she was absent, it was like she was still there. She made sure no matter what stress she was under for her own personal issues, not a single student would get behind due to her not being there. What else sticks out to me is how much time she puts into each child. I know a lot of teachers bring home papers to grade, but with Linda it was different. I had to beg Linda to help grade her papers last year, especially when she was out. It is very important to her to grade her own papers so she knows exactly what each student has mastered and not.

If someone couldn’t come for tutoring until way after school was out, I know Linda would say, “What time?” and she would be there. Teaching is not just a paycheck for Linda. She truly cares about the interest of each and every student who enters her door.

Again, I saw many outstanding teachers last year, but I am thankful I got to assist Linda the little she would let me!!

- Karen Peters

…..

I would like to nominate Linda Somerhalder for the Teacher of the Year award.

Linda is a teacher who truly cares about her students, their success in her class, and their readiness for future math classes (high school and college).

Her students understand how much she values them and they value her in return. As you know, she was voted “Teacher of the Month” by NHS this month. Even kids who had never been in one of her classes were excited to go all out in decorating her classroom to commemorate the occasion.

Linda expects a lot from her students and they deliver. They respect her and they know that she does all she can to ensure their success in her class. If you know any students who are in her class, just ask them. She truly establishes relationships with her kids.

The first year I taught Algebra 2, I audited one of Linda’s classes to see how she taught logarithms. I was amazed at how simple she made it (if only SHE had been my Algebra 2 teacher). After watching her, I felt confident that I too could make this “easy” for my students.

Martin High School is fortunate to have so many wonderful teachers who should be Teacher of the Year, but I hope that you will choose Linda as THIS year’s recipient of this prestigious award.

- Ruth McNeil

When I think of Daniel Regalado…
(Think The Candy Man)
Who can take teacher inservice, sprinkle it with fun
Cover it with humor and a miracle under the sun
The Photo Man, oh the Photo Man can
The Photo Man can ’cause he mixes it with love and makes the world look good

Oh, who can take tomorrow, dip it in a dream
Separate the sorrow and collect up all the cream
The photo Man, oh the photo Man can
The photo Man can ’cause he mixes it with love and makes the world look good

Daniel looks at his coworkers as friends. We benefit from his humor and talent when he thoughtfully puts together a video, lifting our spirits at the beginning of the school year when we are bubbling over with anxiety, and at the end of the year when we are worn out physically and emotionally. Many of us do not mentally calculate the countless hours required to put together such a video. Not everyone realizes that time is taken from his summer vacation and family to finish this terrific gift. He exposes our talents and fun nature while getting to know us, putting names to faces.

Daniel looks at the students with love and compassion. In 2010 he brought our large fragmented group together to film the first Lip Dub. The excitement by the staff and students is memorable and still gets hits on YouTube. He took that same spirit to unite our large group again this year to help expand the vision from just having fun together to banding together to aid a fellow peer. I know he does not look for any accolades for such an act, but I cannot help but feel gratitude for his energy and effort; encouraging students to convert feelings of helplessness to a mission of awareness and action is another example of countless devoted hours to Martin and raising the bar in teaching. The Lip Dub project of 2012 raised thousands of dollars, softened hundreds of hearts, and directly touched the life of one brave young lady.

I admire many of my peers. I love it that I work among such talented minds. Please consider Daniel Regalado as this year’s teacher of the year. Remember the force!

-Susan Darr

It is with great pride that I nominate Sharon K. Miller for Martin High School Teacher of the Year. I have had the pleasure of working side by side with this amazing woman from 1985-1988 and when she came back to Martin from 2005 to the present. Each time that she was hired to serve as my co-director, the Theatre department flourished.

Simply put, she is truly an unsung hero. Through the years, it seems that I have received far too much credit for our Theatre program successes. I will assure you that without Sharon K. Miller, none of this would have happened. Her tenacity, her passion, her love for students is only shadowed by her tremendous directing skills and her ability to “do it all.” I have often told people that she can get more done in one hour what it takes most people a full day to do. To witness this and to watch her work her magic with kids is a beautiful thing to behold. She directs with a zealous fervor that is filled with an abundance of knowledge and an unquenchable desire to help our theatre kids be the best that they can be.

A few years ago when she was diagnosed with cancer, she never complained, she never sought attention, and she never wavered from the job she loves so very much. She simply saw cancer as a nuisance that prevented her from directing shows, painting sets, sewing costumes, and seeing students grow and learn. Even during her chemotherapy and radiation treatments, she would find a way to come up to the school to help out. I truly believe that she “willed” cancer away. She recovered so fast because of her positive attitude and her insistence on getting back to her job as fast as she could.

So many times during the year, my old age, my stubbornness, and lack of patience have served as a hindrance to my students. But watching Sharon work with the students both on stage and off always reminds me of how important my job is and, most importantly, how truly amazing our kids are. Her loving optimistic disposition always offsets my constant and sometimes debilitating pessimism!

Knowing Sharon as I do, she will be angry with me for nominating her for this prestigious award. She will be angry with me because she would not want the attention. That’s the way she is. She loves her work and she loves her students and I know that the students love her as well. Please consider voting for Sharon for Teacher of the Year. If you appreciate our Theatre program, then the best way to show your support for our program is to cast your vote for my co-worker, my friend, and our theatre kids’ other Mom, Mrs. Sharon K. Miller.

-Larry W. Cure

“The greatest leader is not necessarily the one who does the greatest things. He is the one that gets the people to do the greatest things.”
― Ronald Reagan

There is one teacher that has left me in amazement with her leadership skills. Although I have never stepped foot inside her actual classroom and none of my children are technically her students, she has influenced and taught me and my children to do great things. Actually, Ami Motsenbocker has influenced the entire community several times this year to do great things. She has assembled small armies to pull off grand academic hands-on, thought-provoking lesson plans. She includes all ages when developing these lesson plans and they are used throughout the district.

Junior high and senior high clubs get involved to help execute her lesson plans and glean service hours. In fact, her lessons are so incredible that the mayor, state senator, and Superintendent are present when given. She is the topic of discussion at public play parks and dinner tables as friends and families rearrange their schedules to observe and participate in her teachings.

To begin with, Ami has engineered the entrepreneurship contest. Ami was extremely creative as she motivated children to think and contribute their bright ideas in this essay and art entrepreneurship contest. Her idea was used by teachers district wide. Can you imagine leading teachers all over the district with your lesson plan? We all know that if you influence a teacher then you are touching the lives of hundreds. (Teachers are powerful like that!) My son was a semifinalist in the essay portion. We arrived at the UTA Maverick stadium to find hundreds of children, teachers, and parents celebrating awesome ideas. Notable attendees included: Mayor Robert Cluck, Senator Joe Barton, Wendy Davis, Diane Patrick, UT Arlington President, James Spaniolo and Brian Curtis, Channel 5 News. The ideas shared were simply amazing!

I can honestly say this day inspired everyone in my family. I see the world with new eyes. I want to come up with the next big idea. My children, uncles, aunts, in laws, and friends felt inspired to share their ideas and try to think of ways to improve something in order to come up with the next big idea as we talked about the contest in the car, around the dinner table, and during casual conversation. Wow!

Another event that you may have enjoyed with your school club, family, or friends would be the Gollywhopper Games hosted at Martin High school and organized by Ami.

This event is absolutely incredible! The community is invited to enjoy an evening of fun that revolves around math, science, and service. So many helping hands are involved; once again, Ami leads others to do great things. School supplies are donated for Mission Arlington children. Elementary aged children view the evening as complete wild and crazy fun and don’t even realize that they are learning and sharpening math skills as they answer TEKS appropriate questions. All my children, including the recently turned 4 year old, have a great time. Junior and senior high students are in charge of the games and organize the TEKS appropriate questions under the guidance of their teacher/sponsor. There are concession stands, inflatable helmets, and cash grabbing tanks (fake money).

Ami has a few job titles like Marketing Coordinator/Teacher, DECA Advisor, National Technical Honor Society Advisor, and Key Club Advisor. Ami deserves the added title of Teacher of the Year as she has expanded her lessons and encouragement past the walls of her classroom and has not limited herself to the students on her roll sheets. She has made a difference in my family from the age of 3 to 73 years old. She inspires everyone in reach to DO GREAT THINGS!!!!

-Dan and Susan Darr

I would like to nominate Richard Ellis for this year’s Teacher of the Year. Richard has worked tirelessly these past four years preparing his students for college and life after high school through the AVID program. This year, he will help over 20 students make their dreams a reality.

When Richard walks out of the doors at the end of the school day, teaching does not end for him. He is constantly working on making the AVID program better for everyone. Any hour of the day, you will see students in his room. They may be completing work for his Geography class, working on scholarship applications, getting caught up on work for other classes, working on the latest GeoClub fundraiser, or just “hanging out” and playing games in their home away from home.

Not only is Richard active in his classroom, he also is known around school for singing the national anthem, announcing softball games, and chaperoning all kinds of events. Dedicated, passionate and inspirational are three words that describe Richard Ellis and it is for this reason that I nominate him as this year’s Teacher of the Year.

-Rachael Peterson

German class has not only taught the students the language, but has immersed them in the culture, from the celebration of national holidays, like German Unity Day, to the learning of German habits, such as eating ice cream in the theater.

“We have Saint Nikolaus Day, and our German teacher, Andrea Bonner, well we don’t really know it’s her, but someone comes,” freshman Kyle Desrosiers said. “We put our shoes outside along the wall, because it is a German tradition, and the elf Knecht Ruprecht comes and, if you were good, puts candy in your shoe, but Mrs.Bonner never lets us look when he [Knecht Ruprecht] comes.”

German and English are the only two Germanic languages left in the world, giving them similar words and grammar such as milk and Milch, fish and Fisch; and subject, direct, and indirect objects.

“Enrollment is hard every year, when I first came to martin,” Bonner said, “that was 1998. There were three full time German teachers and I taught six classes of Level One German students, Mrs. Mills taught six classes of Level Two and Mrs. Ogden taught Level Three and Level Four; and enrollment wasn’t a problem. Numbers have now dwindled to where I am the only one left. If they dwindle any more not only will I teach all five of the levels, but I will have to teach English as well.”

Bonner and the students of German class believe a social bias against German, to be the main reason behind why classes are shrinking.

“Kids think German is going to be too hard, or they have that whole World War Two background stuck in their heads, or parents keep telling their kids to take Spanish because they live in Texas,” junior Bria Bradford said. “They just don’t understand. Mrs. Bonner makes German class different from all the other languages because she is just amazing, but it also isn’t super easy or super hard. It is somewhere in the middle.”

With there being so few classes, the students you start off with in Level One will be the same ones you will be with from one year to the next, with the exception of the students who left.

“German class is a place to come together and talk to people with varying interest in German,” senior William Kirton said. “In this class I made a bunch of friends. I have made more friends in that class than any other.”

Martin has six Spanish teachers, teaching 32 classes; four ASL (American Sign Language) teachers, teaching 24 classes; and two French teachers, teaching 12 classes. There is one German teacher, with only six classes.

“Every year at Future Fish Night, I tell kids English is a Germanic language, we have more in common with German than any other language,” Bonner said, “but people refuse to believe that German isn’t hard. So that’s our number one problem, overcoming that stereotype.”

After the Napoleonic Wars, Germany’s economy went down. Persuaded by the letters of Johann Friedrich and other German Texas settlers, many German settlers headed to Texas. All this gives Texas a very Germanic background. There are now many German cities throughout Texas such as Muenster, New Braunfels, Fredericksburg. Even San Antonio was settled by German merchants. But much of the heritage was suppressed in the cultural bias during World War Two.

“German class doesn’t really relate to any other class in Martin,” senior William Kirton said “I mean it’s a language class but it’s just unique. I think it’s the best class in all of Martin.”

“The website is called E365 which stands for Equality 365,” Anton said. “The name signifies that we should treat each other as equals every day of every year regardless of race, religion, sexuality, etc. We’re hoping to have the site up by the end of the year. It takes a lot to build a website, though, so it could take less time or it could take more.”

Anton was assigned to compile photos to put on the youth page. In need of a few helping hands, he came up with the idea for “The Big Shoot.”

“The Big Shoot is a photo shoot that, as of now, will be held at the end of March,” Anton said. “We have a couple of different photo concepts that we’ll be executing. We also need advertisers and anyone else willing to help. Anyone who comes to the event will be considered to be a model, too.”

The Big Shoot means a lot to Anton, having been a victim of bullying in the past.

“I’ve had a lot of people say mean things about me because of my sexuality,” Anton said. “I’m hoping that this page will be able to make a real impact on people and change their views for the better. I want the shoot to enable us to establish stronger friendships. Regardless of what we look like or where we came from, we should all be able to get along and come together to make a change.”

Interview with Dillon Anton: http://vimeo.com/61111835