He empowers each student to recognize his or her potential and inspires them to fulfill that potential. So inspiring is his enthusiasm and confidence that students want to work for his sake, if not for their own.

An educator of 34 years, he shows no tolerance for disrespectful behavior, yet the students know that he cares about each individual.

"We all have to live on this planet, and the more of us who learn to get along with each other and respect each other as human beings, the better off we will be," Turner said. "If we don't generalize, and treat each other with respect and decency, a lot of good things can happen."

Over the past three years, the school has recorded 85 percent fewer incidents of disruptive behavior and fighting and 60 percent less truancy.

He recognizes the importance of reaching out to at-risk children even before they enter junior high and takes students from the local elementary school behavioral unit on a fishing trip every year.

His academic improvement recognition program is an effective incentive for every student to do better — even those who cannot achieve 4.0 are recognized.

Margaret Pettis

Ninth-grade teacher

South Cache 8/9 Center

Cache District

She's a poet, an author, an artist and an educator who reaches out to students, fledgling teachers and even prisoners.

Margaret Pettis is a longtime English teacher who is described as a "most astonishing individual — unflaggingly energetic and utterly devoted to her students."

She will do whatever it takes to inspire their imaginations and get students at her Hyrum school excited about learning.

"There is just an amazing world of energy here. It's very exciting and I love the bright-eyed bushy-tailed aspect from (the students)," Pettis said.

She shares with her students the best and worst of her own writing and fosters in them an appreciation for the written word as a form of expression as well as of communication.

The Pittsburgh Institute of Learning has even sent observers to her classroom.

Even those who lack confidence in writing learn from her that to write is to have a voice, and that writing is thus a form of empowerment.

She is also a volunteer at the Cache County Jail, where she helps inmates earn their GEDs.

"I keep waiting for a moment to arise when the end of the line is here — where you're tired and you don't like it anymore, but the longer I teach the more I love it," Pettis said.

Stephen W. Park

Principal

Riverton High School

Jordan District

Steve Park makes sure no student and no teacher get left behind.