EASTMAN, Ga. — My Teacher Tops is back again for another week, this time taking a trip to Dodge County High School.
We wanted to recognize their art teacher, Mrs. Laurie Kirkley.
Her students say she is extremely kind and caring. They she was truly missed during her battle with breast cancer last year.
Thankfully, Mrs. Kirkley was able to overcome, and be reunited once again with her students.
Caroline Southerland, a 10th grader at Dodge County High, was just one of the many students that missed Kirkley in her absence.
Once her teacher returned Southerland wanted others to know just how passionate her teacher was about her job and craft.
"She makes school fun and incorporates art into so many things. She knows everything there is to know about art and has very interesting ways of teaching it to her students," Southerland said.
Mrs. Kirkley, a Dodge County High graduate herself, says teaching was all a part of her plan.
When she was in high school she said she wanted to be an art teacher once she got older, gaining her inspiration from her previous art teachers Sandra Harrison, and Carl Hilliard.
Even when she graduated high school and from the University of Georgia, her passion for the Dodge County community and arts still remained the same.
She now decorates the halls of her school and community with beautiful murals, and during homecoming she helps students decorate their props and floats.
Even more, Mrs. Kirkley started her own positivity program called 'Dodge Rocks', where anyone in the community can paint a positive message on a rock and place it throughout the area for those to see.
"Art is in everything, and every single thing in our culture has an element of art to it," Kirkley said.
She says every day she gets to come to her class is a real joy!
Congratulations, Mrs. Kirkley!
Do you have an amazing teacher? If so, we want to honor them!
Junior Journalists love to surprise your top teachers, so be sure to send in your nominations.
Students can do that by writing us a letter or email.
Send letters to:
My Teacher is Tops
1314 Gray Highway
Macon, Georgia 31211
or email us at myteacheristops@13wmaz.com
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