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January 29, 2014Eleven distinguished Terrebonne Parish scholars and educators will be honored Feb. 6 at the parish’s Foundation for Academic Excellence at the Celebration of Excellence program.
The TFAE dinner begins at 7 p.m. at Cypress Columns in Gray. Fred Haise, astronaut and member of the ill-fated Apollo 13 space mission, is the featured speaker.
Celebration of Excellence is a spinoff from TFAE’s Academic Excellence Teacher Awards. It is the first year the program honors top students and the public school educators who’ve most impacted their lives.
Students were nominated by the administration at each of the parish’s four public high schools, along with the career and technical school. A student was also chosen from the class of 2013 at Bayou Cane Adult Education Center.
The foundation selected a group of citizens to choose two scholars from each school that faced challenges through high school, but managed to rise above them.
“It demonstrates to students that they can accomplish whatever goals they set for themselves and that this is just the beginning,” said TFAE Executive Director Yolanda Trahan. “Now, they’re getting ready to embark on a new chapter and, if they work hard enough and persevere, they can accomplish it.”
The 2013-14 honorees are:
• Kaitaline Authement, Terrebonne Career and Technical High School; inspirational educator, Scott Pellegrin.
• Mary Anne Burlette, Terrebonne High School; inspirational educator, Leslie Davenport.
• Sarah Gautreaux, South Terrebonne High School; inspirational educator, Summer Skarke.
• Nahja Holloway, Ellender Memorial High School; inspirational educator, Alicia Guillen.
• Megan McCormick, H. L. Bourgeois High School; inspirational educator, Cindy Gray.
• Sarah Simoneaux, South Terrebonne High School; inspirational educator, Chris Brown.
• Dakotah Springstead, Terrebonne Career and Technical High School; inspirational educator, Charlie Positerry.
• Kyler Trosclair, Ellender Memorial High School; inspirational educator, John Haslitt.
• Fernando Urbina, H. L. Bourgeois High School; inspirational educator, Jeri Overley.
• Bonnie Wells, Terrebonne High School; inspirational educator, Virginia Lottinger.
Tickets for the banquet are $70 per person. For more information, contact the TFAE office at 985-868-5881.
As a nonprofit organization, the TFAE has awarded $903,000 in grants to Terrebonne Parish School District teachers to go toward classroom learning over the past 14 years, with $395,000 in matching funds received from the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education.
Trahan said a small portion of proceeds from the banquet will go toward the Dolly Parton Imagination Library for Terrebonne Parish students. The nonprofit program provides free age-appropriate books monthly to children from birth to age 5.
A backup crew member on Apollo 8, 11 and 16 missions, Haise, 36 at the time, was elevated to the crew after Ken Mattingly was exposed to the German measles and was yanked from the mission.
The moon-bound craft never reached its target, becoming NASA’s greatest rescue mission instead, after a spark from an exposed wire in an oxygen tank caused a fire and damaged the spacecraft and rendering its controls virtually useless.
