Art educators, IEA members, recognized by peers
November 12, 2009 by IEA Communication
Pecatonica High School teacher Eric R. Donaldson was named the 2009 Art Educator of the Year by the Illinois Art Education Association at the group’s annual conference last weekend.
Donaldson, an Illinois Education Association member, was selected on the basis of his outstanding commitment to visual art education in his district, 321, as well as his wider contributions in the northern Illinois area.
He has been an art educator for more than 30 years in northwest Illinois and has taught in Freeport, Lena-Winslow and Pecatonica, where he’s been for the past 24 years.
There he has developed an extremely strong art education curriculum, including a blacksmithing facility on school grounds that he developed with his students. He’s brought national attention to Pecatonica by making the high school one of only five in the nation with such a facility.
In addition to Donaldson, the IAEA also recognized two other IEA members as well as an IEA-Retired member for their great contributions to art in Illinois.
- Joan LeGrys Mills, Fry Elementary School in the Indian Prairie School District in Naperville, was named the 2009 Elementary Art Educator of the Year.
- Jaclyn Wargo of Homewood Flossmoor High School, School District 233, was named the Early Professional Award Winner.
- Roger Shule of Antioch, a retired art educator, was named the 2009 Distinguished Service to Art Education Outside the Profession award winner. He taught art for 35 years in school districts 285, 24 and 34. He is the president and charter member of the Antioch Fine Arts Foundation and continues to teach and maintain a studio at the foundation gallery.
The IAEA is an association of art educators in Illinois and has been serving the children and art educators of Illinois for 60 years.
The Fall Conference was joy filled with good people who are devoted to art making and to student learning. Listening to the award winners acceptance speeches filled my cup with affrimation and challenge. If you did not have the opportunity to attend this year, go next year and better yet become a part of the conference.