A Northport graduate - and her artisan mother - are being recognized by Williamsburg (VA) James City County Public Schools.

AWARD-WINNING third grade teacher Sarah Lichtel
works with third graders at Stonehouse Elementary
in Virginia.

Sarah Lichtel, a third grade teacher at Stonehouse Elementary School, has been named winner of the 2008 Eleanor M. Johnson Elementary Teacher Award from the International Reading Association (IRA).

The national award recognizes an outstanding elementary classroom teacher of reading or language arts. The award is made in honor of the now-deceased founder and former editor-in-chief of Weekly Reader.

Lichtel was recognized for her knowledge of reading and language arts, teaching effectiveness, willingness to share ideas and methods, impact on colleagues and enthusiasm. She is leader of the third grade team at Stonehouse, where she has taught since the school opened. She will accept her honor at the IRA National Conference next month in Atlanta.

SALLY VISKOCHIL and other area
artisans have volunteered their time
to turn the halls of a Virginia
Elementary into a series of
museum-quality collages.

Lichtel is the daughter of Sally and the late David Viskochil. Sally Viskochil, and fellow artists Marianne Vick, Emily Bert and Jill Bert, have made a point to turn the walls of the elementary into museum-worthy art depicting points in history.

A press release from the school district states, “A casual observer of the collage of drawings might understandably assume that it is a reproduction of museum paintings found in Washington or Richmond or some local gallery. But all of them are seen by Stonehouse Elementary students of the walls they walk through every day. The images are all coordinated with the lessons they are learning, and they are the inspired work of Michigan-based artist Sally Viskochil and her colleagues…”

Sally Viskochil is owner and Vick a manager of Tamarack Gallery in Omena.