EXCEL winner shares excitement of teaching

The Meadow View Elementary School community gathered Wednesday to celebrate the ExCELence of one of its own.
Laureen Laumeyer, a fifth-grade teacher at Meadow View, was honored at the ExCEL ceremony for Hardin County Schools. Sponsors of the award and local dignitaries gathered to recognize Laumeyer for her teaching abilities.

Jill Pickett

Meadow View Elementary School fifth-grade teacher Laureen Laumeyer reacts to receiving a Kindle from her school family, presented to her by Veronica Keeler during the ceremony Wednesday at the school in Radcliff, honoring Laumeyer for being named the 2010-2011 ExCEL award winner for Hardin County Schools.

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Jill Pickett

Fifth-grade teacher Laureen Laumeyer accepts the golden apple for being named the 2010-2011 ExCEL award winner for Hardin County Schools, during the ceremony honoring her Wednesday at Meadow View Elementary in Radcliff.

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Jill Pickett

Fifth-grade teacher Laureen Laumeyer addresses those gathered for the ceremony honoring her Wednesday for being named the 2010-2011 ExCEL award winner for Hardin County Schools, at Meadow View Elementary in Radcliff.

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ExCEL, which stands for Excellence in Classroom and Educational Leadership, is an award presented in several school systems in the region. It is sponsored by WHAS-TV, LG&E and Kentucky Utilities.

Gary Roedemeier of WHAS was on hand to present the golden apple award to Laumeyer and praised her impact on students in her classroom.

“She spends each year in her classroom creating a generation of lifelong learners,” Roedemeier said.

Laumeyer was presented with gifts and recognition from representatives for U.S. Rep. Brett Guthrie; Rik Hawkins, interim Hardin County Chamber of Commerce executive director  and State Sen. Dennis Parrett. Judge-Executive Harry Berry and Radcliff Mayor J.J. Duvall also were in attendance, and there were presentations from the Meadow View Parent-Teacher Organization and  HCS Board.

Laumeyer’s fifth-grade class performed a skit that encompassed a lesson she had taught them about the Bill of Rights. Students performed a song as well.

Meadow View colleague Veronica Keeler presented Laumeyer with a Kindle electronic reader from the staff and spoke about the hard work Laumeyer puts into all she does. Not only would she still be asking questions in their Western Kentucky education classes after they were over, Keeler said, but that same work ethic bleeds into her yard work and scrapbooking.

“Everything she does, I am so jealous of,” Keeler said, laughing.

Danelle Laumeyer, Laureen’s daughter, spoke about having her mother as a fourth- and fifth-grade teacher. It was in her class that she got her first B, she said.

Laureen Laumeyer returned the kind remarks later, when she thanked the people in her life for their support. She supplemented the “thank-yous” with a slide show of pictures.

“To my kids, thanks for becoming my friends,” she said.

She ended by thanking her other kids, her students, who she said made her want to come to work every day. She showed a photo of herself in elementary school, wearing a very sour expression, and then one of her with her current class, in which she had a bright smile. She attributed the difference to them.

“It’s easy to excel when you teach the most fabulous fifth-graders ever,” she said.

Kelly Cantrall can be reached at (270) 505-1747 or at kcantrall@thenewsenterprise.com.