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2012-13 Fine Art Award Winners: Terry Bosley and Mandy O'Neil

The "go getters" who earned the Fine Art recognition awards -- the Distinguished Service Award and the Class Act Award -- are teacher-coaches who have set the bar high.

Given for the first time during the 2009-10 school year, the criteria for the two awards is similar. The recipients must be actively involved in IESA Speech. The recipients must demonstrate the ability to develop and promote standards of good performance practices, integrity and life skills within their students. The contributions of both award winners must have positively impacted students and the school community.

For the Distinguished Service Award winner, the contributions must be significant and/or long term for someone involved with Speech for over eight years of teaching and coaching. For the Class Act Award winner, the contributions are from someone involved with Speech for at least 3 and not more than 8 years of teaching and coaching.

Terry Bosley, who taught at Armstrong-Ellis Grade School for 35 years, and who has coached the speech team for 20 years, is the 2013 Distinguished Service Award winner. As long as IESA Speech has been offered as an activity, Terry has been a mainstay within the Armstrong community organizing teams each year to perform at contest. Terry promoted the importance of Speech as a beneficial activity to the students within his school and his administration responded by creating an Activity period within the school day dedicated to the fine arts. Retired from the Armstrong-Ellis school system as a teacher, he still serves as Speech Coach for Armstrong-Ellis.

Mandy O'Neil, a teacher at Jefferson Middle School in Champaign for the past eight years, and a speech coach the past six years, is the 2013 Class Act Award winner. As the sole speech coach at Jefferson, Mandy has been instrumental in creating a program that teaches life skills through the performing arts. Her students are much more confident after participation in her program and carry that self-confidence over into their classroom participation. Her emphasis on time management and commitment has given her students a strong foundation for success. The contributions she has made to the Drama department have truly enhanced the Jefferson Middle School community.