Striving for excellence and keeping school fun — or striving for fun and keeping school excellent — Vicksburg’s 2009 elementary and secondary Teachers of the Year are committed.

Named Tuesday by the Vicksburg Chamber of Commerce, Deborah Ederington of Sherman Avenue Elementary School, a prekindergarten teacher, and Dani Kay Thomas, a junior high English teacher at St. Aloysius High School, took home the top awards, which included jumbo-sized checks for $1,000. Each local school nominates a candidate for the award annually.

Ederington, in her 10th year of teaching and third at the preschool level, said she loves keeping school exciting and fresh for the little ones in her class.

“Even at that young age, you see the ‘light go on’ and see them get excited for themselves,” she said. “I just want to continue to love what I do, to continue to make it fun for them in the classroom.”

She tries to stay ahead of them in whatever is “latest” — the latest game, the latest craft, the latest thing that’s captured their imaginations that she can use in her curriculum. “I look for new ways to teach it,” she said.

Ederington has 20 4-year-old full-day students, said Sherman Avenue Principal Ray Hume. “She has a tremendous amount of patience, but also a tremendous amount of organization. You can’t have any down time with that age group because they need structure.”

Some might say Thomas’ adolescents have some of the same needs and offer some of the same challenges. She teaches eighth- and ninth-grade English classes and a seventh-grade enrichment course, and said she “absolutely” believes she’s where she belongs.

“I love the students,” she said. “I have a lot of patience, which is something they really need at this level, but we also have a lot of fun.”

Thomas said she keeps her classroom changing and moving, teaching in large groups and small, having the kids work with partners and in pairs. “You have to give them different ways to be successful, different ways to show you what they’ve learned. And that’s really what it’s all about — that they learn.”

Though keeping traditional literature like Shakespeare and Poe relevant in the day of cell phones, video games and Facebook, Thomas said she stresses her classroom motto with her students every day: Strive for excellence in everything you do. The attitude applies not just at school but also in sports, relationships with friends and family and throughout life, she said.

The awards were announced by Vicksburg attorney Buddy Dees, who has headed the Chamber’s education award committee for 21 years. Honorees are nominated by secret ballot of their fellow teachers, then go through a final selection process including a personal interview with a four-member panel of retired teachers, Dees said.

The 17 finalists were introduced by Dees before the Teacher of the Year award announcements. “You’re all winners,” Dees told them. “It’s got to be a wonderful honor to be elected by your peers.”

Chamber awards were also given out for ambassador of the year and large and small business of the year.

Guest speaker Blake Wilson, president of the Mississippi Economic Council, told Chamber members that despite economic challenges, the state has plenty to offer. He cited several principles for promoting development and overcoming those challenges, including finding common ground among community groups.

“If you’re going to get some work done, all of the community has to come together and get behind some common initiatives,” he said.

A native of Maryland whose career has also taken him to Florida, Wilson said he’s had opportunities to leave Mississippi and has turned them all down. “I believe there is an eagerness and a desire among the people here in Mississippi to make things happen,” he said. “I think the opportunity truly is greater here in Mississippi than it is up North.”

*

Contact Pamela Hitchins at phitchins@vicksburgpost.com