October 23, 2006
Director of Communications
(804) 371-2420
Julie Grimes
Public Information Officer
(804) 225-2775
Susan W. Evans, a mathematics teacher at Rural Retreat High School in Wythe County, was named the Virginia 2007 Teacher of the Year at a celebratory banquet Friday evening in Richmond. She was selected from the eight Virginia 2007 Regional Teachers of the Year announced in September. Ms. Evans will be the commonwealth’s nominee in the National Teacher of the Year program, which is sponsored by the Council of Chief State School Officers, Scholastic Inc, and ING Foundation.
“Susan convinces her students that they can do the math and then teaches them how,” said Superintendent of Public Instruction Billy K. Cannaday Jr.
“Teaching is all I have ever wanted to do since the day I was born,” Ms. Evans said in accepting the award. This year, Ms. Evans enrolled 47 students in a dual credit pre-calculus course, an extraordinary number for a small, rural high school. Among her prized possessions are notes from students who never thought they could excel at mathematics until they had her as a teacher.
In addition to being named Teacher of the Year, Ms. Evans received an engraved crystal apple, a $5,000 cash award from the Apple Federal Credit Union, and a check for $2,500 from Allen, Allen, Allen, & Allen, a Richmond law firm that has supported the Virginia Teacher of the Year Program since 1992.
Ms. Evans was selected after being interviewed earlier in the day by a committee that included representatives of professional and educational associations, the business community, and 2006 Virginia Teacher of the Year Deborah S. Goforth of Spotsylvania County. Two previous Virginia teachers have gone on to become National Teacher of the Year: B. Philip Bigler, the 1998 Virginia Teacher of the Year, and Mary Bicouvaris, the 1989 Virginia Teacher of the Year.