<b>By CELESTE BAUMGARTNER<br>
Ohio Correspondent</b> </p><p>

MT. STERLING, Ohio — Javonne Mullins of Mount Sterling was one of 51 individuals who received the Teachers Turn the Key Award at the National Assoc. of Agricultural Educators (NAAE) annual conference in Las Vegas, Nev.<br>

Mullins has been an agricultural educator with Matt Unger at Fairfield High School since 2003. The award is a recognition program, as well as a professional development program for early career agriculture teachers, said Dr. Jay Jackman, executive director of NAAE.<br>

Mullins said she strives to develop creative lessons to fit students’ learning styles, abilities and interests. She reaches all of her students through the program’s computer lab, greenhouse, mechanic’s shop, natural resource lab and livestock barn. She is especially proud of the community involvement of the FFA chapter.
“Our kids are good at doing and planning community service activities themselves,” she said. “Last November, I took 12 students to Texas on a Greyhound bus and we helped rebuild some homes that were damaged by Hurricane Rita. We spent four days rebuilding, fixing a house that had a damaged roof.<br>

“We also have things in the local community we help with,” she said. “We put on a safe Halloween for elementary students and younger students of the community. We normally have 500 to 600 kids who show up. Our school district is pretty small – we only have about 900 in the district K-12.”<br>

Mullins believes in motivating her students to succeed by building their self-esteem and challenging them in and out of the classroom.<br>

Her enthusiasm and hard work are the qualities the NAAE is looking for in teachers who receive the award.<br>

“What we’re identifying here are the very best early career agriculture teachers,” Jackman said. “Our goal is to encourage them to make the choice to continue in the teaching profession.
“What we know is that only about half of the teachers that get certified to teach agriculture out of our universities ever choose to take that first teaching job. Beyond that, we lose about half of those teachers who do take the first teaching job in the first five years of their teaching career (this is typical of the whole teaching profession),” he said.<br>

“The purpose of this program is to encourage these early career teachers to make the choice to stay in the teaching profession – we want to keep them in the classroom.”<br>

Winning the award and receiving a plaque gives the teachers recognition, Jackman said. The professional development aspect of the award involves an expenses-paid trip to the national convention, which was in Las Vegas this year.<br>

Special programming is designed for the award winners.
“We were in a program with just the award recipients,” Mullins said. “They put on workshops for us. We talked and debated about the role of ag education and vocational education, and the delivery message used within the vocational or ag-ed classroom.”<br>

The program was worthwhile, and Mullins said she would recommend for other teachers to apply for the award.
For more information, write the National Assoc. of Agricultural Educators, Inc., 300 Garrigus Building, Lexington, KY 40546-0215, phone 859-257-2224, visit www.naae.org online or e-mail naae@uky.edu