COLUMBUS, Ind. — For Lori Cash, teaching is practically the family trade.
She teaches first grade at Columbus Signature Academy Lincoln, her mother and two older sisters are retired elementary school teachers, and her younger sister teaches high school science.
“It was just kind of something I knew,” Cash said. “When I first went to Purdue, I just thought … ‘I’m not going to be a teacher, like everybody else.’ And then I realized, ‘No, that’s my calling.’”
Now, as Cash enters her 30th year of teaching, that calling is marked by a special achievement — the honor of receiving the Edna V. Folger Outstanding Teacher Award.
The award is given by the Center for Teaching and Leadership at IUPUC, in partnership with the Community Education Coalition and SIHO. Bartholomew Consolidated School Corp. officials said Faurecia has supported the award for almost 40 years.
The annual award “was designed to raise awareness about the immeasurable influence teachers have on their students and to recognize the image of teachers as important community role models.”
Usually presented in the spring, the Folger award is presented at the Columbus Area Chamber of Commerce’s Annual Meeting, an event that has been moved to September this year due to the pandemic.
Cash was surprised when, during a teacher work day at CSA Lincoln in early August, she received the award on the school’s front steps. Her family, however, had known since the spring and kept the secret for months.
“I was very surprised and very honored,” Cash said. “I know every year I look at who wins the award and think, you know, how deserving they were. And so, I just feel honored to be in a category with those educators.”
For more on this story, see Friday’s Republic.
