Tri-County EMC gives more than $84,000 to fund projects in clasrooms of 98 area teachers
By Phyllis Moore
Published in News on December 28, 2017 12:57 PM
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Forty-three educators in Wayne County were recipients of recent Bright Ideas education grants awarded by Tri-County EMC. A total of $84,063 was distributed in Wayne, Duplin and Lenoir counties, with Wayne receiving $35,293 to fund creative classroom projects.
In its latest round of Bright Ideas education grants, Tri-County Electric Membership Corporation has awarded $84,063 to fund projects in the classrooms of 98 area educators.
The innovative learning projects will benefit thousands of students at schools in Wayne, Duplin and Lenoir counties.
"Our Bright Ideas grant program is the largest in the state that benefits a range of students across the counties we serve," said Michael Davis, general manager of Tri-County EMC.
"Teachers have countless creative projects and we're honored to play a part in bringing these ideas to life in the classroom."
The Bright Ideas grant program was begun in 1994. To date, it has generated $1.5 million, funding 1,599 projects.
Grant applications are collected each year through mid-September, with winning proposals selected through a competitive evaluation process by a panel of judges. The process will be open to interested teachers again in April 2018.
To learn more about the program, visit online www.tcemc.com or the Bright Ideas website, www.ncbrightideas.com. A Facebook page, "Bright Ideas Education," also offers regular updates.
In Wayne County, $35,293 was distributed among 43 teachers representing 12 schools.
Those recipients are as follows:
Brogden Primary
•Emily Parks, $479 for "Only One You Painted Rocks"
•Robert Smith, $999.80 for "Third Grade Kindles"
•Star Shaffer, $1,000 for "To STEM or Not to STEM"
Charles B. Aycock
• Karen Cox, $1,675 for "Braking the Tradition"
•Steven Thorne, $1,190 for "HoverCraft Project"
•Tammy Vail, $945 for "Entrepreneurs the Backbone of Rural America"
Eastern Wayne High
•Lee Edmundson, $1,200 for "Fly the Coop"
•Thomas Houston, $754 for student PowerPoint presentation projector
Eastern Wayne Elementary
•Sheila Rollins, $546 for "Henpecked and Happy,"
Fremont Elementary
•Vickie Atkinson, $689 for "Cool Weather Tools of a Meteorologist"
•Carrie Croom-Vick, $999 for "Drawing in the Third Dimension"
•Tammy Derksen, $612 for "Building Stories With LEGOS"
•Amber Sauls, $409 for "Far Out! Solar System in My Room"
Grantham Elementary
•Michelle Hope, $779 for "Activating Brains Resource Library"
•Rebecca Jones, $953 for "STEM-U-LATING the 'WHY?'"
•Jenny Coley Sasser, $762 for "Innovation, Demonstration, and Collaboration"
Grantham Middle
•Jeff Bradley, $997 for "The Conclusion is INclusion"
Northwest Elementary
•Melissa Edgerton, $986 for "Build Your Story Brick By Brick"
•Heather Freeman, $605 for a counseling library
•Joyce Hess, $362 for "A Hair Raising Experience"
•Hope Hester, $553 for "How is the weather up there?"
•Karen Hinnant, $396 for "A STEAM Fairy Tale -- Where Ideas Do Come True!"
•Valerie Holden, $483 for "Around the World with Puppets"
•Kathryn Edwards Jarrell, $970 for "Roaring Rousseau Lion Paintings"
•Laurie Keck, $783 for "Water you mean?"
•Mindy Glover Lane, $929 for "Driving Me Up The Wall! (The Rockin' Reading Wall)"
•Sherry Seay Taylor, $520 for "Let's Look Inside - Me!"
•Jennifer Tingen, $388 for "Don't Pop the Greenhouse!!"
•Sherry Waters, $647 for "Building Math Skills Brick by Brick"
•Michele Weeks, $982 for "Rockin' Robots"
Norwayne
•Paul Casey, $960 for "Electronics and Computer Coding with Microcontrollers"
Southern Wayne High
•Jessica Davis, $1,027 for "Swimming with the Fishes"
•Gerald Reedy, $1,000 for "This IS rocket science!"
Spring Creek High
•Joshua Singleton, $999 for "Becoming a "Pro Landscaper"
Wayne Country Day School
•Becky Belvan, $900 for "Fun With Simple Machines Using Legos"
•Dona Briggs, $1,005 for "Imagination Stations for Young Engineers"
•Dena Creger, $997 for "Science Rocks"
•Thomas Gay, $968 for "A Smart Way to Study Microbiomes"
•Lorre Gifford, $942 for "Collaborative Maker Space"
•Catherine Hooks, $1,000 for "Teaching with Technology"
•Robert Peele, $1,011 for "Making the Connection--Sensation to Perception"
•Edward Sharp, $992 for "DNA Fingerprinting and Discovery"
•Dawn McDonald, $1,006 for "Picking Up "STEAM" Through OSMO.