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Each year, the National Education Association presents Human and Civil Rights awards in the name of human and civil rights pioneers, NEA activists and leaders in the fight for equality. One of these is the SuAnne Big Crow award.
Drama students at Hattiesburg High School
received the 2007 SuAnne Big Crow Memorial Award for creating a
drama that captured the gut-wrenching trauma that Hurricane Katrina
victims felt and the nation witnessed. Led by theatre arts and debate
teacher and long-time NEA member from Mississippi, Michael
Marks, these students produced "Katrina Project: Hell and High
Water."
The Pride Players of Omaha, Nebraska were the recipients of the
2006 SuAnne Big Crow Memorial Award. Pride Players use theater
to share the experiences of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender
students who have persevered through name calling, stigmatization,
isolation and even violence-all of which are often ignored by the
adults around them.
The winner of the 2005 SuAnne Big Crow award was the Dominguez High Drama Club of Compton, California.
The club was recognized for enhancing students' self-worth and dignity. Maverick English teacher Catherine Borek lit a fire in students when she and fellow teacher Karen Greene embarked on staging the school's first play in 22 years without a budget, no stage and little support. While Compton seems about a million miles away from the cozy New Hampshire town in Thornton Wilder's 1938 classic play, Our Town, the students embraced the universal themes of love, marriage, birth, and death that transcend race, time and place to create their own version.
More information on this and the other NEA awards can be obtained from their website, http://www.nea.org.
Or click here to find out how you can support the SuAnne Big Crow Boys and Girls Club.
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