Stars Are Named at Two High Schools
Amber York is Jasper County High School’s Student-Teacher Achievement Recognition (STAR) award winner, and she chose math teacher Christie McAlum as her STAR teacher.
At Piedmont Academy, Wyatt Galloway is the STAR student and his STAR teacher is English teacher Leslie White.
Miss York is a senior at Jasper County High School who moved to Jasper County when she was in ninth grade from Gwinnett County. According to Amber “life, for the most part, has been uneventful. After high school, I don’t know where I want to go or what I plan to be. All I know is that whatever I choose, I plan to be the best. Most of my life has consisted of school and trying to succeed”.
She is heavily active in the school community. Since she’s been in high school, she has been involved with the speech and debate team, quiz bowl team, literary team, TSA, envirothon team, physics bowl team, Student Ambassador program, BETA club, gifted program, as well as performed as lead in the school play and has been on the front ensemble in the marching band and won Poetry Out Loud, twice. On top of her extracurriculars, she also helped tutor students over the summer with Ms. McAlum.
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Amber chose Ms. McAlum as her STAR teacher because, according to Amber, “she is not only my teacher, she is my friend. She welcomed me to the Quiz Bowl team with open arms and worked with me to get enough volunteer hours to remain part of the Gifted Program. She taught me how to understand calculus, which in itself is an accomplishment and helped me get into the Governor’s Honors Program. She pushed me to continue working hard when I wanted to give up. For that reason, she is my STAR teacher.”
Mr. Galloway, a senior at Piedmont Academy, is active in many extracurricular activities also, in addition to being a scholar.
This year alone is he active and has received a Presidential Service Award; is Piedmont Academy FFA President; varsity football captain; Hugh O’Brien Leadership Georgia (HOBY) Junior Staffer; United States Naval Academy Summer Seminar; Kiwanis Club Student of the Month – September; National Honor Society. Service he has done this year includes Jasper County Mentor Program mentoring same child from last year, now a first grader; Jasper County Senior Service Center – help with ongoing projects in gardening, building, and games; Project Linus; Trinity House; Operation Christmas Child; and Jasper County Food Bank.
He has been active throughout his high school career with these and other activities.
His STAR teacher, Leslie N. White, 10th and 11th English instructor currently at Piedmont Academy, has taught English with the local school since January 2013. Before coming here, she and her husband Paul had been teaching at Jackson High School since 2003 when they moved to Turtle Cove from Peachtree City.
Mrs. White later retired in 2010 after a long and satisfying career in the classroom and spent much of her time enjoying her retirement and helping care for her 98-year-old mother on the family Black Angus cattle farm in Peach County. Three days after her mother’s funeral when Mrs. White received a call from Piedmont seeking a hurried replacement, she almost turned down the school’s headmaster Mr. Tanner but believed strongly the Lord had provided her with a way to fill her soon-to-be-empty days and be of use to young people once again.
According to Mrs. White, “That decision to return marked the beginning of four+ years of enjoying some of the finest students I’ve had the honor of teaching; having Mr. Galloway name me as his Star teacher is the perfect ending to my 40-year career.”
In particular, Wyatt Galloway ranks predominately in that category of students—his congeniality, strong moral fiber, trustworthiness, and the abilities to grasp varied, new concepts as well as use the written word to communicate effectively.
Mrs. White became aware of Wyatt’s interest in a naval career in one of his early essays during his first year with her; in turn, she shared her father’s time as an instructor at the Naval Academy until December 1941 when he was stationed at Banana River, Fla., as a flight instructor. She has seen in the following years Wyatt’s determination to pursue his dream and come closer to its realization; recently the Hon. Jody Hice awarded him with a Congressional Nomination, one of the prerequisites to an appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy.
Mrs. White believes we here in the Jasper County area will be following this young man’s journey and successes for many years to come.
Christie McAlum is a seventh year math teacher at Jasper County High School; 11th year teaching overall. She received her undergraduate degree from Wesleyan College with a BA in psychology and a graduate degree from Piedmont College with a concentration in secondary mathematics. She currently serves as the Quiz Bowl and Beta Club advisor. In her free time, she enjoys spending time with her sister Page and her two nieces Brittany and Elyse.
According to Ms. McAlum, “Amber is one of the best math students I have ever had; she has an intuitive understanding of mathematics coupled with a strong work ethic and natural curiosity. Invariably if I made a mistake, Amber would find it. If there was a more difficult problem to be solved, Amber would be the student that attacked it tenaciously and found the solution.
“Beyond mathematics, I’ve known her through academic quiz bowl and Beta club; she has also volunteered as a tutor for summer school the past two summers. She has displayed both initiative and dependability in all of those roles. Her scholastic aptitude coupled with her initiative nature and responsibility make her an exceptional student and I am fortunate to have had the opportunity to teach her.”
