Lisa Benson deserves the Educator of the Year award for multiple reasons. Mrs. Benson is the Accounting teacher at Cleburne High School in Cleburne, Texas. She teaches other business courses as well, but she excels in this particular area. In fact, Mrs. Benson is also the UIL Accounting Coach of my UIL Accounting team. Every team she has coached has reached the state level, which goes to prove she does not play around. She loves what she does and does it with excellence. Working in a small group with her has developed a close bond and relationship between us. She relates to students on a level that most teachers won’t waste the time to reach. She cares about each student as an individual and can tell you details about every last one. Mrs. Benson wants the best for her “sweetie baby kids”, as she would say. She strives to do her absolute best to give each student the opportunity to succeed.

Lisa Benson is not like most teachers, as you can see. She takes the time to reach out to her students. She accomplishes this in more ways than one. From posting newspaper clippings of her kids, coming to athletic games just to cheer us on, or making signs for the swim team, she is constantly showing her support. In class, it is almost impossible to fall asleep. She keeps you motivated with her inspiring personal life stories relating back to the lesson and entertained with her “southern woman” expressions. My personal favorite happens to be ‘Dear Gussy’. Mrs. Benson is a one of a kind type of teacher that I am so thankful to have had the privilege of sitting in her classroom. She is dedicated to serving the school and helping kids create a better future for themselves. Mrs. Benson, is not the type of person to hold back her feelings about a situation, but sometimes it’s everything you need to hear. She’s not trying to hurt your feelings, but in fact make you better. I appreciate her in so many ways and I can only hope that I have done more than justice with the words of this paper. I pray that you will consider this wonderful woman as the recipient of the ‘Educator of the Year’ award, because I could not imagine anyone else as suitable as Mrs. Lisa Benson.