J.R. Tucker High School in Henrico is one of five Virginia high schools competing in a pilot teen driver safety video contest launched by the American Traffic Safety Services (ATSS) Foundation.

The schools are currently preparing 30-60 second public service announcement videos that will highlight the use of seat belts, unplugging from distractions (cell phones, texting) while driving, obeying posted speed limits and a variety of other safe driving habits.

Henrico seventh-grader Aditya Kannoth will seek his first regional spelling bee title when he makes his fifth consecutive appearance in the event March 9 at the Library of Virginia in Richmond. Kannoth, a student at Moody Middle School, finished second in last year's event. He has won five straight Henrico County spelling bees.

Thirty students will represent school divisions from across the region as they compete for the title. Each speller has already won a series of bees (classroom, grade level, school, division) in order to advance to the regional bee. Spellers range in age from seven to 14. The youngest competitor is Nicole Frye, a seven-year-old second-grade student representing Dinwiddie County.

High school students from throughout Virginia – including Henrico County – will compete March 8 in a statewide LifeSmarts competition at Virginia State University.

Eight teams of students will face challenging questions about personal finance, health and safety, consumer awareness, and home energy use. Student teams will represent Maggie Walker Governor’s School in Richmond, George C. Marshall High School in Falls Church, Spotsylvania and Chancellor and High Schools in Spotsylvania County, and 4-H programs in Henrico County and Franklin County, Va.

Our third annual ‘Henrico’s Top Teachers’ section profiles 20 outstanding educators in Henrico County.

Readers – including students, parents, grandparents and colleagues – submitted nearly 200 teacher nominations last fall, and our staff faced the difficult task of paring those nominees to just 20.

Each of these teachers has, in his or her own unique way, touched hundreds of lives and helped mold the future of Henrico County. We are proud to tell their stories in this special section.

We salute each one – and the many other deserving teachers who give selflessly each day inside – and outside – their classrooms.

You might say that education is in Connie Kelly's blood. If she needed to talk to the principal of her elementary school in Illinois, she could do so over dinner each night – he was her father. Her mother also was a teacher.

So perhaps it was no surprise when, after having children, returned to finish her college education and begin her own teaching career in her mid-30s.

"I've been loving it ever since," she said. "I wouldn't do anything else."

In Sandra Fontes' classroom, every student is cherished as a unique individual with diverse talents to contribute in the classroom.

"I value and embrace diversity," said Fontes, "and I teach my students to respect and appreciate the fact that we are all different."

Although the tremendous diversity of her English as a Second Language (ESL) classes might seem daunting to observers or to other teachers, Fontes contends that providing a safe and caring learning environment and using instructional strategies that address students' different learning styles and needs are all that's required for every child to learn.

As a six-year-old, Valerie Bryant taught lessons to neighborhood children while she was still a child herself. She also created a library on her parents' front porch, complete with check-out cards for children who wanted to borrow books.

There was little doubt that she was headed for a career as an educator.

"I started out really early," she said. Her first professional teaching job came while she was still finishing her undergraduate degree at VCU and a position opened at the New Community School in Richmond.

Because Karen Nowicki's parents grew up during the Depression and did not have an opportunity to participate in extracurricular activities, Nowicki was showered with opportunities to take dancing and acting lessons and learn to play the piano and flute.

"I never would have guessed back then how often I would use these skills in my career," she said, describing the ways in which she has incorporated drama into her classroom, played piano to accompany the school chorus, and choreographed dance routines for field days, chorus concerts, and talent shows.

Being able to incorporate her own talents and interests into the classrooms, Nowicki believes, is one of the most interesting aspects of being a teacher. "It allows you to use all of the skills you have developed in your lifetime," she said. "It keeps the fun in teaching."