Valerie Newton-Pennington and Rayna Blackshear have more in common than being two excellent educators. They both fell into education unexpectedly.
On September 16, Pennington will receive the 2011 PNC Early Childhood Education Award at the St. Louis American Foundation’s 2011 Salute to Excellence in Education Scholarship & Awards Gala. Blackshear will receive the SEMO Counselor of the Year award. The dinner and gala will be held at the America’s Center.
Help somebody
Valerie Newton-Pennington never planned to become a teacher. In college, she started on the career track to become a nurse.
“I was going through my nursing internship, and I kept wondering if I was cut out for this job,” she said. “I always wanted to help people, so I prayed and asked the Lord if there is any other way that I could help somebody.”
She reassessed her college credits and realized that through her social work minor, she was taking a number of education courses. She soon found her passion for early childhood education through a college internship. Now, she has been a preschool teacher at the YMCA Pagedale Head Start Center for 19 years.
“When I give them that hug or smile in the morning, I feel that I have touched their lives in some way,” she said. “I have students come back, and I feel that is my reward. They have remembered something I said to them to try to encourage them to go further in their education.”
Her personal hero is her father, who passed away. He was a hard-working man, who worked for General Motors over 30 years to support his 11 children.
“Whenever you needed him, he was always there,” she said. “Just hearing his voice would push me on when I was having a bad day.”
She said her parents, along with Jesus Christ, were the driving force for her career. Now, she has a loving family, her husband and son, who support her 100 percent in everything she does, she said. Her son, who cheered her on when she went back to college, is going to be a college junior studying mechanical engineering this fall.
Pennington read a quote that she lives by titled, “What I leave behind.”
“I hope my achievements in life shall be these,” she read. “That I would have fought for what was right and fair. That I will have risked for that which has mattered. That I will have given help to those in who are in need. That I left the Earth a better place for what I’ve done and who I’ve been.”
Pennington said she makes her biggest impact on people’s lives by being someone who listens without giving an opinion.
“I try to listen to our students and our parents,” she said. “Because in life’s journeys, sometimes you just need someone to listen.”
Making future leaders
Rayna Blackshear earned a B.A. in criminal justice with the dream of becoming an FBI agent. When her detective aspirations did not materialize after she graduated, she turned to what’s been the backbone of her parents’ lives – education. Receiving her masters in school counseling at Lindenwood University, she became a school counselor at Cardinal Ritter College Prep High School, where she had graduated.
“I wanted to help students to achieve their future goals and aspirations,” she said. “Everyone in my family believes that education is important.”
At Cardinal Ritter, she is proud that the school’s college acceptance rate is 100 percent. Last year, members of the graduating class received $2.5 million in scholarships, and she said she was glad to be a part of that.
God is the number one influence in her life, she said, next to her parents, who have been educators for 30 years.
“We can’t go anywhere without a student coming up to us,” she said. “It makes you feel good that you impacted a student so much that when they see you, they want to come up and talk with you.”
Blackshear also sponsors the National Honor Society, which organizes blood drives and other community service activities. Through her community service efforts, she is building young leaders.
“The fact that I have been a part of modeling community service, I know that there will be future leaders out here and they will give back to their communities,” she said.
The St. Louis American Foundation’s 2011 Salute to Excellence in Education Scholarship & Awards Gala will be held Friday, September 16, at the America’s Center, with the reception starting at 6 p.m. and program at 7 p.m. For information and tickets, please call 314-533-8000 or visit www.stlamerican.com.
