ST. CHARLES – Former St. Charles East High School student Lexi Baltes credited social studies teacher Lori Drumtra with making history exciting.
“I was amazed daily by her passion for the subject and her ability to share that passion with her students,” Baltes said.
Drumtra on Friday received the D.L. Hoeft High School Teacher of the Year award during the 37th annual Kane County Educator of the Year Awards Banquet at Pheasant Run Resort. Baltes was one who nominated her Drumtra for the award.
Besides her teaching duties, Drumtra is the head girls basketball coach and assistant athletic director at St. Charles East High School.
Area educators also were honored in several other categories. Educator of the Year went to Aurora’s O’Donnell Elementary School Principal Edward Brouch.
“Ed goes above and beyond, and continuously embraces his faculty, parents and his school community,” East Aurora School District 131 Superintendent Jerome Roberts said in nominating Brouch. “He is truly a leader ... but he is also a team player.”
Batavia High School head custodian Bernard Michels received the Kane County Support Staff Award. Batavia High School assistant principal for student services Dave Jones recognized Michels for helping the high school get through its 190,000-square-foot expansion project.
“He was asked to maintain business as usual when everything around him was anything but usual, and he did,” Jones said. “He never complained and never disapproved.”
Geneva Middle School South Principal Terry Bleau received the Administrator of the Year award. Geneva Middle School South sixth-grade math teacher Matthew Foulkes noted that Bleau has taken a personal approach to his job.
“Terry has taken it upon himself to learn the names of all of the sixth-grade students in his approach to make a personal connection with each of his students,” Foulkes said in his nomination letter.
Kaneland John Shields Elementary School literacy specialist Nancy Lynn Meisenger was the recipient of the Elementary Teacher of the Year award.
“As a parent, I have had the privilege to also have my two children inspired by Mrs. Meisenger,” said Sarah Mumm, the district’s director of educational services K-5. “She has shown both of them the excitement of literature and how to incorporate higher order thinking and writing into their lives.”
Judith D. Donner, a teacher at the Mades-Johnstone Center in St. Charles, was given the R.B. Mades Associate Educator of the Year award.