Tag Archives: Teacher Librarians

Texas educator Lucia Rede Madrid earned honors

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Texas educator Lucia Rede Madrid was honored by two American presidents and inducted into the Texas Women’s Hall of Fame for her volunteer work as a local librarian. Photo Credit: Texas Women’s Hall of Fame

There are many fine educators who have contributed to the development of America’s border-town communities. One of these was Lucia Rede Madrid, a dedicated teacher from the border town of Redford, Texas.

Lucia Rede was born in Polvo, Texas, on January 8, 1913. She was the sixth of eight children born to Eusébio Rede and Antonia Luján, who had settled in the area in 1870. When Lucia was only 12 years old, her family relocated to the tiny community of Marfa, West Texas.

Lucia was born to be a teacher. As a young girl, she helped to educate her brothers and sisters. In fact, seven of the eight Rede children became teachers. Lucia earned both her Bachelor’s degree and Master’s degree in Education, both from Sul Ross State University. Sul Ross is a public institution of higher learning located in Alpine, in the Big Bend region of the far western part of Texas. After earning her degrees, Lucia taught at public schools in Marfa and Redford for 23 years.

After her retirement from the classroom in 1976, the dedicated educator established a private lending library in the isolated border town of Redford in 1979. She started the library with just 25 books. By 1992, the collection included over 15,000 volumes. The institution gained national attention and still functions today as a library and museum. Current library holdings include Lucia’s personal Library Hall of Fame, a collection of portraits of individuals who were children in Redford that have gone on to successful careers as engineers, doctors, teachers, and accountants.

For her work as a pioneer educator and librarian, this Chalkboard Champion has garnered many accolades. She was once featured on the NBC Today Show, and a story about her was published in National Geographic in February, 1984. The story was entitled “West of Pecos.” In addition, Lucia was honored with the President’s Volunteer Service Award by President George W. Bush in 1990, and the Ronald Reagan Award for Volunteer Excellence. In 1989, Lucia was inducted into the Texas Women’s Hall of Fame.

Lucia passed away at the age of 90, but her work has not been forgotten!

Jessica Eschbach named Oklahoma’s 2022 Teacher of the Year

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Educator Jessica Eschbach of Norman, Oklahoma, has been named her state’s 2022 Teacher o f the Year. Photo Credit: Oklahoma Education Association

Many talented educators have earned recognition for their dedicated work with students. One of these is Jessica Eschbach, a teacher librarian and learning coach from Norman, Oklahoma. She has been named her state’s 2022 Teacher of the Year.

Jessica currently serves as an Innovative Learning Coach at Norman North High School in the Norman Public School District. In this position, she provides professional development, technology integration, and inquiry-based units for students in pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade. Prior to that assignment, Jessica taught social studies and English at Alcott Middle School, and she also served as the Library/Media Specialist at Kennedy Elementary School.

Jessica is originally from Salem, New Hampshire, but she moved to Oklahoma in 2008 to attend the University of Oklahoma, where she earned her Bachelor’s degree in English/Language Arts in 2012. She earned her first Master’s degree in Library and Information Science from Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, in 2019. She earned her second Master’s degree in Educational Leadership from East Central University in Ada, Oklahoma, in 2021.

During her nine years in public education, Jessica has worked diligently to close the equity gap within her district. She is committed to doing everything in her power to ensure that all students, regardless of where they grow up or attend school, have access to opportunities that will lead them to successful futures.

The honored educator is truly dedicated to her profession. “Being a teacher permeates every aspect of my life, in the best way possible, and working with students and teachers has taught me to be a more thoughtful, compassionate, and responsible human being,” Jessica declares. And her admiration for her colleagues is also evident. “Teachers are superheroes,” Jessica asserts. “They know how to collaborate and work in the trenches with each other to give their students the most opportunities and best futures they can,” she continues.

Award-winning author Jacqueline Jules also works as a school librarian

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Virginia school librarian and teacher Jacqueline Jules has earned acclaim as an author of children’s books. Photo Credit: Jacqueline Jules

There are many excellent educators who have earned success in endeavors outside of the classroom. This is true of Jacqueline Jules, a school librarian and teacher from Virginia who has has earned acclaim as an author of children’s books.

Jacqueline was born in 1956 in Petersburg, Virginia. As a young woman, she earned her Bachelor’s degree with a major in Creative Writing from the University of Pittsburgh. In 2001 she earned her Master’s degree in Library Science from the University of Maryland.

Currently, Jacqueline works as a school librarian at Timber Lane Elementary School in Falls Church, Virginia. She also works as a storyteller and as a guest speaker at schools. She has also taught religious school, led Tot Shabbat services, and has experience as a writing resource teacher. Her career as an educator has spanned a total of 28 years. She credits these experiences with her success as an author. “It actually wasn’t until I became a school librarian that I had enough ideas for writing children’s books,” Jacqueline confesses. “My years as a librarian fueled my writing rather than stalled it. Working in a school taught me what children enjoy and what was missing from library shelves,” she continued. “I could never do the writing I do now without having been a teacher,” she concludes.

Jacqueline’s work has appeared in over 100 publications. She has authored more than 50 children’s books, including The Grey Striped Shirt; Once upon a Shabbos; the Zapato Power series; the Sofia Martinez series; Unite or Die: How Thirteen States Became a Nation; Duck for Turkey Day; Never Say a Mean Word Again; Feathers for Peacock; The Hardest Wor; and Pluto is Peeved. Also a poet, Jacqueline is the author of Tag Your Dreams: Poems of Play and Persistence.

For her work as a children’s author, Jacqueline has earned many accolades. She garnered the Arlington Arts Moving Words Contest twice, in 1999 and again in 2007. In 2009, she earned the SCBWI Magazine Merit Plaque for Poetry, and 2008, she received the Best Original Poetry Award from the Catholic Press Association. She has also garnered a citation for Notable Books for Young Readers from the Association of Jewish Libraries in 2002, and that same year she was named a National Jewish Book Award finalist.

To learn more about this amazing educator and author, visit www.jacquelinejules.com.

Charlotte Stephens of Arkansas: Teacher and trailblazer

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Charlotte Stephens, pictured above, was the first African American teacher in Little Rock, Arkansas. 

Many fine educators are notable for their “firsts.” One of these was trailblazer Charlotte Stephens, the first African American to teach school in Little Rock, Arkansas.

Charlotte was born into slavery in 1854 in Little Rock. After the end of the Civil War, in 1869, she inaugurated her career as an educator when she became a substitute for her own teacher, who had fallen ill near the end of the school year. Charlotte was only 15 years old at the time.  At the end of her first full year of teaching, Charlotte used her savings to travel to Ohio, where she completed courses in pedagogy at Oberlin College. There she studied Latin, geometry, the history of Rome, music, English, and the Bible. For three years she continued to perfect her craft, returning intermittently to Little Rock to teach and earn additional money to pay for her courses.

Charlotte’s career included 30 years as an elementary school teacher, 30 as a high school teacher, and 10 as a teacher librarian in both high school and junior college. In all, Charlotte’s career spanned an astonishing 70 years before her retirement at age 85 in 1939. Among her most notable students were African American composers Florence Price and William Grant Still.

This Chalkboard Champion passed away on December 17, 1951. In 1910, Stephens Elementary School in Little Rock was named in her honor. To read more about her, see this article published in the Encyclopedia of Arkansas.