ECU to host Stokes Lecture featuring 2024 Oklahoma Teacher of the Year

ADA, Okla. - The 2024 Oklahoma Teacher of the Year, Rachel Keith, will deliver East Central University's 2024 Marvin Stokes Lecture on Monday, Oct 28 at 6 p.m. in the ECU Foundation Hall located in the Chickasaw Business and Conference Center.

The event is free and open to the public.

Keith began her career with Stratford High School where she was named District Teacher of the Year for Stratford Schools in 2008 and 2010. In 2012, she accepted a position with Ada Junior High, where she spent the next five years and served as the English Department Chair for three of those years and was honored with Site Teacher of the Year in 2016. While there, she also started the first freshmen Mock Trial Team.

In 2017, Keith transferred to Ada High School, where she taught a variety of classes and has served as the English Department chair for the last five years, the AHS Guided Coalition team for six years and the AHS Leadership Team for five years as mentor teacher. Keith was selected by her peers as the Ada High Teacher of the Year in the fall of 2022 and then chosen as the Ada City School District Teacher of the Years in the following spring. In 2024, Keith was officially named the Oklahoma State Teacher of the Year.

Area teachers of the year, who are also ECU Alumni, will also be recognized during the lecture, including Dakota Blackwell, Davis; Stefanie Baldwin, Byng; Joel Medcalf, Tupelo; Emily Schreiber, Vanoss; Kaitlinn Osborne, Stonewall; Brenda Callaway, Wynnewood; Ronna Clark, Allen; Jamie Vernon, Roff; Julie Savage, Stratford.

The annual Marvin Stokes Lecture, named for the ECU alumnus and highly-regarded Byng superintendent, also serves as a platform to recognize scholarship award recipients in ECU's Education department as well as an opportunity to celebrate district teachers of the year.

The Marvin Stokes Lectureship enhances ECU's ability to expose students in the College of Education, and educators in the university service area, to ideas and trends on the state, national and international stages.

Funding for the event is provided by the annual earnings on funds dedicated to the Marvin Stokes Endowed Lectureship through the ECU Foundation Inc. and matched by the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education.

For more information, contact Christine McKinney with ECU's College of Education and Psychology at 580-559-5319 or by email at [email protected].

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