The Special Olympics has helped thousands – maybe millions – of people since its founding in 1968. It helped Theresa Guy, Teacher of the Year at Martin Luther King Middle School in Milton, find a vocation.

Who says you can’t go home?

For Michelle Barlow, East Milton Elementary School’s library media specialist and 2023 teacher of the year, the East Milton community has always been a place she called home. In fact, it’s where her desire to become a teacher and, later a librarian, first came into being.

Santa Rosa County District Schools has announced its recognition as an A-rated school district for the 2022-23 school year, according to the recently released Informational Baseline School Grades and District Grades by the Florida Department of Education.

Rhonda Waters has been teaching for 16 years, including 14 at Milton, but her original plan wasn’t to go into that profession.

The bassoon is a notoriously difficult instrument to learn; it requires all 10 fingers, including the thumbs, has a complicated fingering system that allows a wide variety of tones, and uses a temperamental double-reed at the mouthpiece.

Jessica Booher earned a bachelor’s degree in kinesiology – the study of physical movement – in 2009 from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, but after working for several years as a health fitness specialist, she decided to exercise her college minor, psychology. She earned a Master of Education degree in school counseling from Liberty University in 2016.

Carla Rials has sort of come full circle at SS Dixon Primary.

She attended school here as a child. Her son went through school here as well. And now, she’s the teacher of the year here.

Bethany Holley is from the area and did her student teaching at SS Dixon Intermediate School. She then landed a job there out of college and has been at the school ever since.

This is year No. 25 for Holley and it’s been a special one so far as she was recently named the school’s teacher of the year.

For Haley Fender, Rhodes Elementary School’s 2023 Teacher of Year selection, being a teacher was never a question.

“My mom has stories of me pretending to (be a) teacher with my little sister like sitting her down with stuffed animals and pretending to read a book,” Fender said. “Its just kind of what I always wanted to do. There was never a lightbulb moment.”

George Starkie took a roundabout road to the classroom, but Avalon Middle School’s Teacher of the Year is finally right where he belongs.