While mentoring and motivating her young journalists to produce award-winning student publications, Linda Drake has inspired students to pursue careers as journalism teachers and advisers.

"I can’t imagine my life now had Linda not been a part of it," said Chad Rummel, a graduate of Chase County High School in Cottonwood Falls, KS, where Drake was his journalism, math and Spanish teacher.

"Every day she touches lives of her students, teachers in her building and journalism advisers around the country. Linda is inspiring and a role model for so many of us," Rummel said.

Rummel, is now a teacher and publications adviser at Oakton High School in Vienna, VA, and will be on hand in Denver when the Journalism Education Association [JEA] presents Drake with one of its highest honors – the 2007 Teacher Inspiration Award. Rummel is one of several former students who nominated Drake for the honor.

Drake, a Jostens customer, not only advises the award-winning Chase yearbook and Chase Informer newspaper, she teaches journalism, photojournalism, desktop publishing, digital media and Spanish. She is president of the Kansas Scholastic Press Association [KSPA] and a member of the National Scholastic Press Association [NSPA] board of directors.

"Linda is the single most dedicated teacher I have ever known. Above everything else, she cares." said John Hudnall, KSPA executive director. "She sets the standard for quality educators in Kansas.

"She’s the only person to have held the presidency of the Kansas Scholastic Press Association for two terms – quite a feat," Hudnall added.

In addition to the Teacher Inspiration Award, Drake has earned several other national honors. She was a 2001 JEA Distinguished Yearbook Adviser and a 1999 JEA Special Recognition Yearbook Adviser. The Dow Jones Newspaper Fund named her a 2000 Special Recognition Adviser.

In addition to speaking to her fellow advisers at a luncheon at the JEA/NSPA National High School Journalism Convention in April, Drake will receive $1,000.

  Linda Drake, winner of the JEA 
Teacher Inspiration Award