DNRonline : Friends Share Simms Limelight
5/15/14, 8:20 AM
FRIENDS SHARE SIMMS LIMELIGHT
Teacher Award Winners Named At Ceremony
Posted: May 15, 2014
By KASSONDRA CLOOS
BRIDGEWATER — This year’s Lucy F. Simms
Educators of the Year have known each other for a
long time, and celebrated together when they were
named at Wednesday’s reception.
In fact, Cathy Soenksen consulted Kimber Tate when
she was applying for a position with Harrisonburg
City Public Schools 13 years ago.
“It’s wonderful to share today with Kim,” Soenksen,
50, a literacy specialist and dual-enrollment speech
teacher at Harrisonburg High School, said.
Soenksen has been teaching for 29 years, 13 of them
with HCPS. She said both the HHS teacher of the year
award and especially the Simms award came as big
surprises for her.
“I never forget that I am one cog on one wheel of a
much larger system, I think was the analogy I used,”
Soenksen said of her application. “It’s all a team effort.
Everybody shares the credit of the successes and
everybody shares the challenges.”
Kimber Tate (left), Lucy F. Simms Educator of the
Year for Rockingham County Public Schools, and
Cathy Soenksen, the award recipient for
Harrisonburg City Public Schools, hug after the
ceremonies at Bridgewater College on Wednesday.
(Photos by Michael Reilly / DN-R)
Soenksen received high praise from Harrisonburg
Schools Superintendent Scott Kizner.
“I have been in her classroom many times and she is a
fabulous, remarkable teacher that I wish my three
daughters had,” Kizner said, adding that he could say
the same about the seven other division teachers who
were honored as their schools’ teachers of the year for
HCPS.
Tate has been teaching for 30 years, all in
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DNRonline : Friends Share Simms Limelight
5/15/14, 8:20 AM
Rockingham County Public Schools. This is her first
year at Spotswood High School, and her first time as a
school librarian. It’s about time, at the age of 53, for
her to be challenged to think differently, she said.
“I just love the kids. I wouldn’t want a job where I
didn’t get to work with young people,” Tate said.
“That’s the joy of it, you get to see them realize their
dreams. I have former students who are now in the
central office, so it’s a great privilege to get to see them
dream big. … That’s your reward.”
Tate was lauded as the “embodiment of excellent
teaching in Rockingham County Public Schools,” said
Kevin Rose, of the Harrisonburg law firm BotkinRose
LLC, who presented the award.
Lucy F. Simms Educator of the Year recipients
Kimber Tate (left) and Cathy Soenksen celebrate
with Carol Fenn (right), superintendent of
Rockingham County Public Schools, after the
awards ceremony at Bridgewater College on
Wednesday.
Soenksen, too, said she enjoys seeing her students
grow up and find success, particularly after they have struggled and overcome the challenges of
learning English.
“Those sorts of rewards, you can’t get anywhere else,” she said.
The Harrisonburg Education Foundation and Rockingham Educational Foundation give the
teaching awards annually.
The Simms award was sponsored this year by Douglas Guynn, a Harrisonburg attorney, his
employer, BotkinRose, and the Virginia Education Law Group. The award was created by the law
firm Wharton, Aldhizer & Weaver in 2001, and later named in honor of Simms, revered as one of
the area’s most influential educators.
Simms, born into slavery in 1855, began teaching at age 17. During her 56-year career in the
Shenandoah Valley, she taught an estimated 1,800 black students.
“Despite being born into slavery and suffering segregation, everything she went through, she was
able to rise above it all out of a selfless commitment, a service to kids,” Guynn said. “The folks being
recognized today are of the same spirit. It’s a powerful symbol to remember her life and what she
stood for.”
Contact Kassondra Cloos at 574-6290 or [email protected]
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