Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, June 1, 1994 TAG: 9406010043
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: By PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER DUBLIN
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The National Association of Geology Teachers named her the top teacher in a region that covers Virginia, Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and the District of Columbia.
Now teaching at Pulaski County High School where she graduated in 1976, Cecil remembers her first fascination with rocks she glimpsed at Gatewood the day her parents, Leo and Markeatter Cecil of Draper, drove there on a family outing.
``Stop the car! Stop the car!'' she kept telling her father, so she could get out to collect yet another rock.
Her older brother, as older brothers will be, was critical. ``What do you want those rocks for?'' he demanded.
Because, 4-year-old Karen Kay Cecil replied, ``I'm gonna be a geologist!''
But while she was going to New River Community College and then Virginia Tech, oil companies were retrenching and laying off geologists everywhere. She decided that teaching geology might be the best career move, and got her science education degree from Tech in 1982. She added a master's in physical science from Radford University in 1988.
``I've always been curious about everything around me,'' she said. ``I was one of those people who were getting science labs for Christmas as a child, when everybody else was getting dolls.''
She began teaching advanced junior and senior geology and astronomy at Pulaski County High in 1983.
In 1990, she persuaded administrators at New River Community College to offer a course in general geology, which she offered to teach. In four years, her classes have grown from 25 to 40 students.
She found herself at New River teaching parents of students in her high school classes, as well as people with whom she had attended high school herself.
The double teaching load has not slowed her down. ``In the car on the way over to New River, I get my second wind,'' she said.
She also does ``dinosaur day'' programs for children in day-care centers, using her own plastic models. She must sometimes reassure people at Christmas that she opened the right package when they see her pull out a new dinosaur kit.
Naturally, her favorite movie is ``Jurassic Park.''
One day as her community college students were filling out teacher evaluation forms, they all started laughing at the same time. When she asked why, she found they had all reached the question that asks if the teacher is enthusiastic.
``They get real tickled with me,'' she said. ``You have to be excited about what you teach, or the students are not going to be excited.''
They are, though. Cecil has parents consult her on what kind of telescope to buy a child suddenly fascinated by astronomy. Some complain that they learn more than they want to know about geology at mealtime from their child, or say ``My child won't watch anything but the Weather Channel'' on television.
``I have had several students choose to major in geology or environmental sciences in college. One of my students from New River Community College is a student from Japan. She has decided to return to Japan and complete her degree in geology,'' Cecil said.
Cecil takes advantage of the diverse geology of the New River Valley by taking her students on field trips to places like Glyn Lyn.
``This area has many instructional resources for expanding the classroom,'' she said. ``Field trips to the geology museum at Virginia Tech, the Wysor Observatory in Dublin and the Glyn Lyn trip to dig for fossils add practical applications to classroom study.''
Teachers and students come by her classroom each day to read the latest National Weather Service report Cecil has posted outside the door.
Cecil began teaching in that classroom when Elrica Graham retired. Graham once won the same geology-teacher-of-the-year award and teases Cecil about the room being lucky. They are now working together on geology exhibits for the rebuilt Old Pulaski County Courthouse.
She was nominated for the award by one of her Radford University professors for all her efforts in the field of geology.
``It's just been a love I've had all my life,'' she said. She once considered specializing in oceanography, she said, until she made a discovery: ``I get seasick!''
by CNB