The first recipient was Bev Brown in 1986. Past recipients include: Joy Phelps, Evelyn Tomter, Jeanne Schneider-Powers, Rhondi Adair, Bridgette O'Brien, Jeff Orr, Jean Young, Patty Nielsen, Zachary Hansen, Jennifer Bills, Allison Parks, Stuart Hake, Jenny Graupensperger, Angela Heath, Donald Sidman, David Gardner, Dianne Matthaei, Malcolm Davidson and Kyle Price.

Completing her 10th year at Annie Wright, Emily Weston has had a profound effect on teaching and learning at AWS, as well as on school life in general. Emily has become a master math teacher. She has nurtured hundreds of our young women through their early years of high school, and given them the confidence to believe in themselves as mathematicians. Not only is she a wonderful, caring math teacher, she is also innovative. Six years ago, Emily implemented the flipped classroom method that involves having students work differently at home so that they can interact individually with the teacher at school rather than merely be lectured to. This has meant that students’ individual needs have been met much more directly than is possible in a more traditional classroom setting. And as her supervisor, Jake Guadnola says, there has never been a teacher who squeezes more out of a minute of teaching than Emily!

Not only is she a master teacher, but she is also works her socks off with the yearbook. Perhaps one of the most thankless tasks in school life, Emily has taken this on with gusto since she arrived. With successive cohorts of yearbook kids, she has produced excellent yearbooks year after year. The latest version just out this week is a stellar example.

Emily throws herself into school life, cares for kids, is a consummate professional and is the recipient of the 2018 Beverley Brown Excellence in Teaching Award.

The first recipient was Karen Credgington in 1992. She was followed by Jim Timson/Diane Soucey, Jan Buennagel, Susan Bennett, Trudy Robinson, Belinda Lartey/Kwame Pobee, Paul Manning, Jake Guadnola, Jack Fallat, Mark Blanchard, Susan Bauska, Rex Bates, and Charles Minor.

This year’s recipient of the Murray award is an iconic teacher, mentor and coach who fulfills each of the three criteria stated for qualification to an immense degree. She has given enormous service to AWS in a whole host of ways.

Not only has she directed incredible plays and musicals over the years – The Boyfriend, Chicago, Guys and Dolls, Robin Hood, to name but a few, but also she has run chorus groups and bands, and taught generations of students how to sing beautifully. She cares passionately for her students, not only academically and socially, but personally too. For years after they have left, our alums beat a path to Liz’s door; they know intimately how much Liz cares for them, and it stays with them forever.

Not only is Liz a powerful teacher and mentor, she is a huge supporter of the school too. She is a significant donor to AWS in her own right, and as a voting member of the Grammys, has supported our gala with trips to see the Grammys for many years. Liz for all you do you our students, school and the community, please accept the 2018 Murray Family Award for Excellence.