Monday's blog focused on the Kruger Street Toy and Train Museum located in the former Kruger Street School. Someone who taught in that school started her teaching career in that school and through the years with breaks in between for she and her husband Russell to have 3 children, Mary Lu Hutchins Monday night was named Ohio County Schools Educator of the year at the School Board meeting. It means she will be eligible for state teacher of the year with a right to get a Toyota Avalon and attend the 2009 West Virginia State of the State Address similar to what happened to my fellow classmate David Soltesz in 2004.

   Mary Lu started at Kruger Street in 1979 taking over as Kindergarten Teacher vacated by Darlene Kibby, who had a baby. She a few years later taught first grade, I believe replacing Clara Presutti, who was the first grade teacher when I ended at Kruger Street in 1982. The things I remember from Mary Lu at Kruger Street was that she was on playground duty Wednesdays, went jogging before work and her playing "Hello Everybody, Yes Indeed..." that could be heard from downstairs to her 2 kindergarten classes which during my Elementary days were a morning and a afternoon kindergarten. During the 1980-81 School year, she was at West Liberty in the morning and then Kruger Street in the afternoon for Kindergarten.

   These were not the credentials of course for Hutchins getting the award, but it is with her position at Steenrod where she has been since 1990 that she gets the honor and as a matter of fact for the Ohio County Schools community and even the local college institutions. She also has received other awards nationally for her teaching.

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