Eight NAfME Members Among Ten GRAMMY Music Educator of the Year Finalists

 

THE RECORDING ACADEMY^® AND THE GRAMMY FOUNDATION^® has announced the finalists for the Second Annual Music Educator Award of the Year award. The 2015 award will be presented at the Special Merit Awards Ceremony & Nominees Reception on Saturday, Feb. 7, 2015, during GRAMMY® Week. Ten music teachers from nine states were chosen from more than 7,000 initial nominations that were submitted from all 50 states.

The finalists, with NAfME members’ names highlighted in bold, are:

 

Name	School	Location
Steven Acciani	Diamond Bar High School	Diamond Bar, California
William Bennett	Cane Bay High School	Summerville, South Carolina
Jared Cassedy	Windham High School	Windham, New Hampshire
Charles Cushinery	Ed W. Clark High School	Las Vegas, Nevada
Krista Fanning	Caddo Middle Magnet	Shreveport, Louisiana
Richard Maxwell	Arcadia High School	Phoenix, Arizona
Debra Reilly	Springhouse/Orefield Middle Schools	Allentown, Pennsylvania
Huber Smith	Maplewood Middle School	Sulphur, Louisiana
Nancie Tobison	Barrington High School	Barrington, Illinois
Danny Yancey	Martin Gifted & Talented Magnet School	Raleigh, North Carolina

The award recognizes a music teacher that has “made a significant and lasting contribution to the field of music education and who demonstrates a commitment to the broader cause of maintaining music education in the schools.”

NAfME member Kent Knappenberger of Westfield Academy and Central School in Westfield, New York was the first GRAMMY Educator of the Year. The 2015 winner will be selected from the ten finalists and will be flown to Los Angeles to accept the award, attend the 57th Annual GRAMMY Awards ceremony, and receive a $10,000 honorarium. The nine finalists will receive a $1,000 honorarium, and the schools of all 10 finalists also will receive matching grants.

The honorariums and grants provided to the finalists and schools are made possible through the support of the GRAMMY Foundation’s Education Champions Converse, Disney Performing Arts, Ford Motor Company Fund, and Journeys.