Eleanor Roosevelt said, “When you cease to make a contribution, you begin to die.” In that case, Kristi Rathbun will live a good long time.
We would like to extend our sincere congratulations to Rock Canyon High School and Kristi Rathbun, the Journalism Education Association Distinguished Adviser for 2014.
The National High School Yearbook Adviser of the Year program is designed to honor outstanding high school advisers and their exemplary work from the previous year, as well as throughout their careers.
A selection panel, made up of the most recently selected Yearbook Advisers of the Year, and a team of four student media experts reviewed the entries prior to and at the fall JEA/NSPA National High School Journalism Convention. Points were awarded based on a rubric, and the top advisers were named National Yearbook Adviser of the Year, Distinguished Adviser or Special Recognition Adviser.
Announcement of winners was made on January 19, 2015. Kristi will be recognized during the adviser luncheon at the spring JEA/NSPA National High School Journalism Convention in Denver. In addition, Kristi will be featured in the convention program and will be part of a panel discussion about yearbooks.
A $500 award for Rock Canyon High School may be used to buy equipment for the yearbook classroom or to fund student scholarships to summer workshops. The National Yearbook Adviser of the Year competition is underwritten by Platinum-level sponsors, one of which is Balfour Yearbooks.
On local, state and national levels, Kristi has made countless quality contributions in curricula including aligning departments’ curriculum with district and state standards, improving classroom practices by mentoring teachers and addressing students’ varied learning styles. By developing strategies for cooperative learning, she has organized classroom activities into academic and social learning experiences while students produce three publications: the award-winning Black & Gold yearbook, The Rock newspaper, and rockmediaonline.org website.
Balfour and Balfour’s education team have had the opportunity to work with Kristi as well as Rock Canyon yearbooks staffs. Kristi uses her personal talents in writing, technology, design, social media and marketing to help students discover their own talents. By practicing sound journalistic principles and by studying current trends, students develop the skills to create dynamic publications. During this process, Kristi guides the students to realize that publishing is a process of studying, learning and producing. She teaches them the importance of doing something over and over and over again until they have produced their best work. Where else can they have this experience under the guidance of a master teacher?
Her talent, dedication, warmth and humor make her a Distinguished Adviser and phenomenal educator.
Congratulations, Kristi!