Lemon among top educators honored with Crystal Apple Award

By Sun Advocate

It’s been a week of graduations, award’s ceremonies, good byes and banquets. The Carbon Board of Education gathered with many of its principals, teachers, classified personnel, families and friends last Thursday to honor employees with extra mile awards and recognize 12 people who are retiring at the close of the school year.
Jan King was honored as teacher of the year, Karen House was presented a plaque for administrator of the year, Cathy Lamph was recognized as classified employee of the year and Dorothy Fry was given the award for volunteer of the year.
In addition to these presentations the following retirees were honored: Irene Cripps, Creekview Elementary; Joyce Christensen, East Carbon High; Dennis Hanson, Castle Heights Elementary; Marie Iriart, Castle Heights Elementary; Tamara Johnson, Helper Junior High; Judith Kelley, Sally Mauro Elementary; Carol Marra, Castle Heights Elementary; Camilla Pruitt, Wellington Elementary; Thomas Roush, district office; Janet Sparks, Helper Junior High; Maurine Tanner, Sally Mauro Elementary; and Michael Valentine, Mont Harmon Junior High.

Carol Marra
Carol was raised in Price and graduated from Notre Dame High School. After Carol raised her two daughters, she went back to school. She graduated from USU in 1985 and began teaching at Castle Heights Elementary. For the past 20 years, she has taught third grade. To enhance her teaching skills, she completed the CLIP program, obtained a GT endorsement and has worked toward a Reading Endorsement. Carol enjoys teaching and loves working with children. She says she receives great personal satisfaction in seeing them learn and prosper.
Janet Sparks
Janet Prince Sparks started her Carbon School District adventures in 1950 in the first grade at Hiawatha Elementary School. That year the school had grades one through nine. By the time she left at the end of sixth grade, it had shrunk to three classrooms of split grades. Janet continued her education at Price Junior High and the newly built Carbon High. Janet attended Carbon College and BYU. Following her graduation with an English degree, she started her first year as an English teacher at Butler Middle School in Jordan School District. She later moved with her husband to Blanding where she taught English at San Juan High. After three years, they returned to Price and in January of 1972, she started teaching English at Carbon High. She spent 10 years in sophomore English teaching many of the students who now are parents of her current students. In 1982, she took the opportunity to move to Helper Jr. High.
Camilla L. Pruitt
Camilla was born and raised in Carbon County. Camilla started working part-time as an aide for the district in 1972 at Wellington Elementary. With the encouragement of her principal, Ralph Dyett, she went back to school in the evenings while continuing to work full time. She graduated from USU in 1986 and began teaching that fall. She taught second grade for 17 years and first grade for one, She has worked at Wellington Elementary for 30 years.
Joyce P. Christensen
Joyce has been the secretary at East Carbon High School for 23 years. She has seen many teachers, principals and counselors come and go in her years there. Joyce said some of the best times were the Junior Proms when the students were all dressed up and looking beautiful and handsome. It has been great to see the accomplishments of the students who really did try to do their best.
Thomas L. Roush
Tom has been a special educator for Carbon District since 1980. He has worked as a school psychologist, special education teacher, special education director and testing director. Prior to working for Carbon District, Tom worked in Emery School District for eight years. His academic accomplishments include a BS from Southern Colorado State College, an MS from New Mexico Highland University and a PhD from Utah State University.
Maurine Tanner
Maurine was raised in Evanston, Wyo. and graduated from USU. She then received her Early Childhood from Adams State in Alamosa, Colo. She began her 39 year career in San Juan County. One of the four years she taught there was a K-8 grade in a one room school house. She then taught in Green River, Wyo. for seven years before moving to Carbon County where she has been teaching for an additional 28 years.
Marie Iriart
Marie was born and raised in Price and graduated from Notre Dame, CEU and then USU. She married and taught school in California for 10 years then moved back to Price with her daughter Nicole. She taught for a year at Durrant and when Castle Heights opened, she transferred over to that school with Principal John Angotti. She has continued teaching there for the past 23 years.
Tamara Johnson
In 1967, Tamara graduated from Utah State University in Home Economics, now known as Family and Consumer Sciences. Her first teaching assignment was in the spring of 1968 at Bear River High School in Tremonton. In 1968, she and her husband, Lee, moved to Price where she began teaching at Mont Harmon Jr. High. In the fall of 1970, she took six years off to raise their two children. She was fortunate to return to teaching at Mont Harmon in 1976 and has been there ever since. She says she has had a wonderful and memorable time teaching students and working with and getting to know other teachers.