A teacher who has devoted her career toward helping kids succeed was honored Wednesday by the Shawnee Optimist Club.
Shawnee high school math teacher, Sharon Metzger, was presented with the Educator of the Year Award. The Optimist Club selected her because of her dedication to students, her ability to teach math at all levels and her efforts to make sure children understand the material.
Metzger says she is grateful for the recognition because it highlights the work that she and her colleagues do.
“It is truly a great honor because I’ll be honest I teach with a whole staff that is equally worthy,” said Metzger. “I mean we couldn’t do what we do without everybody else.”
The president of the Optimist Club says they hand out this award every year because it's important to recognize the time and effort educators put into their careers.
“We focus on what we can do for the youth in our community and we can be here as parents and as community leaders and as tutors and different things, but it’s important that the teachers who spend every day with the students get recognized and we feel like that doesn’t happen often enough,” said Jenene Nicholson, Shawnee Optimist club president.
In addition to Metzger’s recognition, Kevin Miller, Gabe Williams, Megan Nicholson and Luke Schneider were each awarded $1,000 scholarships. They are all seniors from Shawnee, Perry and Lima Central Catholic high schools.
