Four years ago, the Delta Kappa Gamma Society International created the Educational Excellence Award as a way to honor person or organizations in the community that go out of their way to support teachers and schools.
At their April meeting, the Nu Alpha Gamma Chapter presented that award as well as a monetary donation to Dr. James Caufield, editor and publisher of ThePerryNews.com.
“Scarcely a day goes by that ThePerryNews.com does not feature an article about something happening in the Perry schools,” said Nu Alpha Gamma Chapter Secretary Sue Leslie in presenting the award. “From the students who are honored by the monthly Bluejay Leaders awards to events happening in the fine arts department at the high school, Caufield covers it all.”
Especially memorable was the coverage of the tragic events of Jan. 4, 2024, Leslie said.
“You handled it with compassions for the victims as well as the community while keeping us all informed,” she said.
In addition, news from the Dallas County Area Retired School Personnel Association and the Nu Alpha Gamma Chapter are also featured on ThePerryNews.com website, Leslie noted. She said the website recently published a series of articles relevant to Nu Alpha Gamma’s research into the history of rural schools in Dallas County. These articles reached across the country and prompted readers to share their experiences in rural schools.
In accepting the award, Caufield said that he felt teaching was a calling, a vocation, and although he taught at colleges and universities around Los Angeles for most of 20 years, he never felt truly called as an educator.
“I was always a better learner than I was a teacher,” he said.
The presenters told Caufield that he was called to teach in a different way—to teach readers about the local world as it is happening in the form of breaking news.
“There’s been a lot of teachers in my family,” Caufield said, “and many of them taught right around here, from Lincoln Number Nine and Washington Township School out in the country to St. Patrick Catholic School and the Perry public schools here in town. So I would like to dedicate this award, which I most gratefully accept, to their memories.”
The Nu Alpha Gamma Chapter is the Dallas County chapter of the Delta Gamma Society International, a worldwide society of women educators.
Sue Leslie is the secretary of the Nu Alpha Gamma Chapter.
