Many gifted educators are well-known not only for their contributions to the classroom, but also for outstanding accomplishments outside the realm of education. Such is the case for Blanche Evans Dean, a high school biology teacher who is also a renowned naturalist and conservationist from Alabama.

Blanche was born June 12, 1892, the youngest child of her parents, John and Catherine Evans. She was raised on her parents’ farm in Clay County, Alabama, on land her mother’s family had bought from the Creek Indians. Even at an early age, the young Blanche developed a keen interest in science, and exhibited a fondness for the plants and animals that inhabited the world around her.

As a teenager, Blanche attended Lineville High School and, after graduating in 1908, began teaching at the two-teacher school at Hatchett Creek Presbyterian Church. After deciding to make teaching her lifelong career, Blanche enrolled at Jacksonville Normal School, now known as Jacksonville State University, with a major in education. She later transferred to Valparaiso University in Indiana, from which she earned a teaching certificate at age 26.

After graduation, Blanche taught for three years at Shades Valley High School in Birmingham. In 1922, she took a break from teaching and entered the University of Alabama, where she earned a degree in chemistry in 1924. Once she completed this degree, she accepted a position as a biology teacher at Woodlawn High School in Birmingham, where she developed her hands-on, experience-based style of teaching. Blanche believed that students were better able to develop an understanding of birds, insects, and plants, and “a sense of being” for all living things by listening and observing first-hand, even getting down on their hands and knees.

In 1939, the innovative teacher married William Dean, but they divorced less than a year later. Blanche decided to keep her husband’s surname.

Blanche remained at Woodlawn High School until she retired in 1957, spending nearly 30 years teaching in the public school system. In the later years of her career, she became a passionate naturalist and conservationist. One of her projects in the 1940s was a campaign to have the U.S. Government declare Alabama’s Clear Creek Falls a national park. The area, threatened by dam construction, was rich in mountain laurel, contained a rare species of white azalea, and even supported a stand of Canadian hemlock. The campaign failed, however, and the falls were ultimately incorporated into Lewis Smith Lake.

Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Blanche helped to found the Alabama Ornithological Society, the Alabama Environmental Council, and the Alabama Conservation Council, then known as the Alabama Conservancy. Additionally, the indefatigable educator was involved in the Birmingham Audubon Society, the Alabama Academy of Science, the National Association of Biology Teachers, the American Fern Society, and Delta Kappa Gamma. In 1951, she established an Outdoor Nature Camp, which she directed every summer for thirteen years in order to educate teachers and other adults about Alabama’s natural history. In 1967, after assisting the Alabama Environmental Council in designating Alabama’s first national forest, the Willliam B. Bankhead National Forest,  she was awarded a prize from the National Audubon Society for conservation education. Blanche was the first person from Alabama to receive such an award.

Blanche had always been frustrated with the lack of reference books available about Alabama’s botany and zoology, so after her retirement she wrote several books on the subject. She self-published Let’s Learn the Birds of Alabama in 1957, Trees and Shrubs in the Heart of Dixie in 1961, Let’s Learn the Ferns of Alabama in 1964, and Wildflowers of Alabama and Adjoining States in 1973. Her field guides remain the standard today.

One of the most amazing teachers ever was a West Virginia educator named Freida Joy Riley. This dedicated teacher is responsible for inspiring young students in a small coal mining town to pursue careers in NASA, and preparing them academically to succeed there.

Freida was born in 1937 in Squire, West Virginia, to J.F. and Sallie Beavers Riley. As a high school student, she attended Big Creek High School, where she was ranked first in her class. Following her high school graduation, she attended Concord College and then completed graduate work at Ohio State University and West Virginia University.

After college, Frieda was hired to teach at her alma mater, Big Creek High School in War, West Virginia. She worked there during the late 1950s and early 1960s teaching math, science, chemistry, and physics. As an educator, she was considered dynamic, but tough. She was widely known for her inspiring work with students, including Homer Hickam, Jr., who achieved his seemingly unattainable goal of working for NASA. After Homer retired, he became a highly acclaimed writer, publishing a 1998 memoir entitled Rocket Boys which soared to the top of the best seller lists. In the book, Homer gave a great deal of credit to Freida for his professional successes. Eventually, the story became the 1999 feature film October Sky, with actress Laura Dern portraying Freida. The talented educator also appeared in Homer’s two follow-up memoirs, The Coalwood Way published in 2000, and Sky of Stone published in 2002.

In the last days of her life, Freida suffered from Hodgkin’s Disease. Nevertheless, she insisted on continuing with her teaching, even when  it was necessary for her students to carry her to her classroom on a stretcher. She passed away in 1969, when she was only 31 years old. She is interred at Grandview Memory Gardens in Bluefield, Virginia.

The Freida J. Riley Award was established in her honor and is awarded annually to an American educator who overcomes adversity or makes an enormous sacrifice to positively impact students. The award is sponsored by the Christopher Columbus Fellowship Foundation and administered by the Partnership for America’s Future.Concord College has also established an annual scholarship in Riley’s name.

America cherishes its veterans, many of whom are also champions in the classroom. One such veteran was Wendell Earl Dunn, a distinguished educator, principal, and college president.

Wendell was born near Summit, South Dakota, in 1894. His father was a farmer, optometrist, and inventor. Wendell spent his boyhood on a prairie homestead. He earned a degree in transportation from the University of Wisconsin in 1916. During his college years, he played professional baseball in the Three-I League in order to help pay his way through college. He was also a gifted musician, playing the cornet and the violin in various musical ensembles. During World War I, Wendell served in the U.S. Army, during which time he attended officer candidate school.

Wendell began his career as an educator when he accepted his first job as a high school science teacher in Pierre in South Dakota. There he taught from 1918 to 1919. During that time he supplemented his income by writing speeches for state legislators. He also served as the school superintendent for Blunt, South Dakota, a position he occupied for four years. Next, Wendell became the principal of Aberdeen Senior High School in Aberdeen, South Dakota, where he served for seven years. From 1924 to 1930 he was a professor of economics and American history at the Black Hills Teachers College in Spearfish, South Dakota.

In 1927, Wendell earned his master’s degree in education from the University of Wisconsin, and then he moved to Baltimore in 1931. Wendell then served a long tenure in Baltimore city schools. He worked as the vice principal of Baltimore City College, the principal of Patterson Senior High, and the principal of Forest Park High School, while also serving as the president of the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools.

This chalkboard champion passed away in 1965 after a long illness. He was 70 years old. He is buried in Green Mount Cemetery in Baltimore.