Tag Archives: Business Teachers

Richard Knoeppel: Recent inductee into the National Teachers Hall of Fame

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Richard Knoeppel: Stellar Las Vegas Career and Technical Education teacher and recent inductee into the National Teachers Hall of Fame.

There are many fine classroom educators who have been singled out for special recognition. One of these is computer technology teacher Richard Knoeppel of Las Vegas, Nevada, who was inducted into the National Teachers Hall of Fame earlier this month.

Richard earned his Bachelor’s degree in Industrial Arts Education in 1967 from University of New York at Oswego. He earned his Master’s degree from the same institution the next year. In 2008, he earned an Advanced Studies Certificate from Southern Utah University.

Richard inaugurated his career in the classroom at Northport High School in New York, where he taught Drafting and vocational courses in auto shop and metal shop. From 1991 to 1994, he taught  Career and Technical Education at J. Taylor Finley Junior High School, also in New York. He spent the school year of 1994-1995 teaching Career and Technical Education to students grades six through eight at Robison Middle School. In 1995, Richard accepted a position as an instructor at Technologies Academy in Las Vegas, Nevada, where he has been teaching courses in architecture. In all, this stellar educator’s career has spanned 31 years.

Today, Richard is a teacher-leader at A-Tech. He serves as the Career and Technical Education Department Chair. He is also a member of the Nevada STEM Advisory Council.

For his work in the classroom, Richard has earned many accolades. In 2007, he was named to the Clark county School District Excellence in Education Hall of Fame. In 2014, he garnered Teacher of the Year honors at Magnet Schools of America, Region VIII. In 2017, he was honored as the Nevada State Teacher of the Year.

“As a Career and Technical Education Teacher, I firmly believe that I need to provide my students with the knowledge and skills they will need to thrive in the future,” declares Richard. “I want to provide them with the ability to be successful in jobs and careers that haven’t been thought of yet,” he says.

First Lady Pat Nixon was once a high school business teacher

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Pat Nixon Business teacher and Former First Lady Pat Nixon.

Throughout American history, there are many examples of well-known personalities who were once schoolteachers. One of these is former First Lady Pat Nixon, who served as our First Lady from 1969 to 1974. She was employed during the 1930’s as a business teacher at Whittier Union High School in Whittier, California. In fact, Pat was working as an educator when she met her future husband, a young and ambitious city attorney named Richard Nixon.

Pat Ryan Nixon was born into a family of farmers on March 16, 1912, in Ely, Nevada, although she grew up in a rural community now known Cerritos, California. Her mother died of cancer in 1924, when Pat was only 12 years old. After her mother’s death, the young girl kept house for her father and two older brothers, Wiliam, Jr., and Thomas. It was a big responsibility for such a young girl.

In spite of her challenges, Pat graduated from Excelsior High School in 1929, and then worked her way through college working a variety of jobs. These jobs included retail sales, pharmacy manager, typist, and telephone operator. After her high school graduation, she first attended Fullerton Junior College in Fullerton, California, and then transferred to the University of Southern California, where she earned her Bachelor’s degree in Merchandising, cum laude, in 1937.

A pretty and popular teacher, the former Miss Ryan instructed courses in typing, bookkeeping, business principles, and stenography. Her students remembered her fondly, writes daughter Julie Nixon Eisenhower in a detailed and personal biography published in 1986. The book is called Pat Nixon: the Untold Story, and is available on amazon.com.

In the political arena, Pat served her country as the wife of the Vice President from 1953 to 1961, and then as First Lady during her husband’s presidency, which spanned the years of 1969 to 1974. Her major platform as First Lady was to promote volunteerism. Through this platform, she encouraged Americans to address social problems at the local level through volunteering at civic organizations, hospitals, and rehabilitation centers.

Pat Nixon passed away on June 22, 1993, in Park Ridge, New Jersey. She was 81 years old. She is interred next to her husband at the Richard M. Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in Yorba Linda, California.

Remembering Columbine’s Chalkboard Hero and slain educator Dave Sanders

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Dave Sanders

Terry Lee Marzell examines plaque honoring slain educator Dave Sanders at the Columbine Memorial.

While visiting the Denver area last weekend, I had the unique opportunity to visit the Columbine Memorial which honors the innocent lives lost in the Columbine High School massacre. There I paid homage to Dave Sanders, a truly heroic teacher who lost his life during the shooting.

Dave was born on October 22, 1951, in Eldorado, Saline County, Illinois. He was the youngest of five children. Sadly, his father passed away when Dave was only four years old. Following his father’s death, the young boy was raised by his widowed mother in Newtown, Fountain County, Indiana.

Even as a youngster, Dave excelled at athletics. Known for being a consistent and dependable player, he participated in basketball, baseball, and cross country. After his 1969 graduation from Fountain Central High School in Veedersburg, Dave enrolled at Nebraska Western Junior College in Scottsbluff, Nebraska, where he earned his Associate’s Degree. He then transferred to Chadron State College in Chadron, Dawes County, Nebraska. He earned his Bachelor’s degree in Education from Chadron in 1974.

That same year, Dave accepted his first teaching position at Columbine High School in an unincorporated area of Jefferson County, Colorado, near the Denver suburb of Littleon. There he taught business classes, including typing, keyboarding, business, business law, and economics. He also worked with other teachers in the Business Department to organize career days and arrange for guest speakers to visit classes.

But it was as a coach that Dave truly excelled. Early in his career he coached boys’ baseball, basketball, cross country, and soccer. In his later years, he coached girls’ basketball, softball, and track. In 1995, Dave’s girls’ softball team reached the Class 5A state finals, and the same year, his girls’s basketball team qualified for a coveted berth in the annual Sweet 16 Tournament. “His ability to coach was not so much about his ability to do the sport but about his ability to analyze the mechanics of the sport, the kinesiology of it,” colleague Joe Marshall once described. “It didn’t matter what he coached. He coached kids, he didn’t coach a sport. He truly devoted himself to the athletes,” Joe continued. In addition to his coaching responsibilities for Columbine, Dave and his colleague, Rick Bath, coached basketball camps, softball tournaments, open batting cage sessions, and a B league girls’ softball program during the summers.

Dave Sanders

Chalkboard Hero, teacher, and coach Dave Sanders

Dave’s career as a teacher and coach spanned 25 years. Tragically, this outstanding educator was shot and killed on April 20, 1999, when two students carried out a mass shooting at Columbine High School. During the massacre, the intrepid teacher organized an evacuation of the area, led a group of approximately 200 students to safety, and warned unsuspecting teachers and students in other classrooms of the danger. He is credited with saving at least 200 lives that fateful day before he succumbed from his gunshot wounds.

For his heroism, Dave Sanders was honored in 1999 with the ESPY Arthur Ashe Courage and Humanitarian Award. The same year, he was recognized by the National Consortium for Academics and Sports with the Giant Steps Award for Male Coach. You can read more about him in my second book, Chalkboard Heroes.

Chalkboard Champion Mary Hatwood Futrell: Teacher and former president of the NEA

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Mary Hatwood Futrell

Chalkboard champion Mary Hatwood Futrell, teacher and former president of the NEA

One of the most amazing chalkboard champions I have ever researched is Mary Hatwood Futrell, a high school business teacher from Virginia who was eventually elected president of the National Education Association (NEA).

Mary was born in Altavista, Campbell County, Virginia, on May 24, 1940. Young Mary was raised by a single mother, who worked as a housekeeper and factory worker. When she became an adult, Mary established a relationship with her biological father, a construction worker.

As a teenager, Mary attended Dunbar High School in Lynchburg, Virginia. There she participated in cheerleading, student government, Future Business Leaders of America, and the National Honor Society. After her high school graduation in 1958, Mary enrolled in Virginia State University, where she earned her Bachelor’s degree in Business Education In 1962.

Mary accepted her first position as a teacher at Parker Gray High School, a segregated school located in Alexandria, Virginia. She taught there from 1962 to 1964. In 1965, the young teacher moved to George Washington High School, where she was instrumental in integrating the teaching staff. She taught business courses at George Washington until 1980. While there, Mary pursued her Master’s degree in Secondary Education from George Washington University. She completed the degree requirements in 1968.

In addition to her work in the classroom, Mary was active in the teachers’ union. She worked her way up the ranks, and was eventually elected president of the National Education Association (NEA) in 1983. Only the fourth person of color to be elected to that office, she served there until 1989. During her three terms as NEA president, Mary led the organization to achieve gains in civil and human rights, especially women’s rights. Because of her tireless efforts, the NEA created the Mary Futrell Award to recognize individuals who have made a significant impact on education and on the achievement of equal opportunities for women and girls.

In 1992, this amazing educator joined the faculty of George Washington University. In 1995, she was promoted to Dean of the Graduate School of Education and Human Development. She also served as the director of the George Washington Institute for Curriculum Standards and Technology. She did all this while earning her doctorate in Education Policy Studies. Mary has also served in a number of other important organizations. She was the president of the World Confederation of Organizations of the Teaching Profession; The Virginia Education Association; Education International; and ERAmerica.

To guide fellow teachers in their search for best practices, the former classroom teacher has published numerous scholarly articles about the pedagogy of teaching. “When the uncapped potential of a student meets the liberating art of a teacher,” Mary once wrote, “a miracle unfolds.”

For her work in education policy and reform, Mary has been awarded numerous honors and awards, including more than 20 honorary degrees. To learn more about this amazing chalkboard champion, see her biography at History Makers.

Pat Nixon: The Pretty Teacher of Whittier High School

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cvr9781416576051_9781416576051_lg[1][1]I was really surprised to learn that former First Lady Pat Ryan Nixon had been employed for several years in the 1930’s as a business teacher at Whittier Union High School in Whittier, California. In fact, she was working as a teacher when she met her future husband, a young and ambitious city attorney named Richard Nixon. Pretty and popular, the former Miss Ryan instructed courses in typing, bookkeeping, business principles, and stenography. Her students remembered her fondly, writes Julie Nixon Eisenhower in a very detailed and very personal biography about her mother published in 1986. You can read all about Pat Nixon’s teaching career in the book Pat Nixon: the Untold Story, available on amazon.com.