As a teacher in front of her classroom at Eastwood Elementary School, Amber Nichols is known for her meticulous preparation.
Lesson plans, notes and ideas on things to talk about.
Notions of what might entertain her students for the day, as well as educating them, besides.
Tuesday night in Charleston, though, was completely different.
She was winging it, from behind the wheel.
“I didn’t pack anything for an overnight stay,” she said.
“Didn’t take a toothbrush, my husband didn’t take the day off, nothing. I just got in the car and went.”
See, she wasn’t expecting to be named West Virginia’s Teacher of the Year by the state Department of Education — but that’s exactly what happened in ceremonies at the Culture Center.
“Wow,” Nichols said by cell phone, as she was motoring back from the state’s capital city. “Truly an honor.”
Truly deserving, too, Eastwood Principal DeAnn Hartshorn said of her colleague, who has spent 21 years in front of the classroom.
Over the years, she’s taught kindergarten classes and special needs classes, while doing something else, Hartshorn said.
Nichols, her principal said, always manages to makes the grade with every mom and dad and caregiver she meets.
She especially does that, Hartshorn added, with every student she meets.
“That’s Amber’s superpower,” the principal said.
“Amber will look at the kids in her class and she’ll instantly ‘know’ them,” she said.
“She’ll see their strengths and she’ll see what she has to do to help them excel. She makes us all better.”
Nichols was among a field of 10 educators nominated. The evening also saw the recognition of Jessica Grose as West Virginia’s School Service Personnel of the Year.
Grose is a special education aide at Hodgesville Elementary School in Buckhannon.
The Teacher of the Year, meanwhile, said she was just happy being in the company of kindred spirits. For her, education was always a calling, even if she didn’t fully realize it at first.
She’s a Doddridge County native who took a degree in broadcasting from Shepherd University.
She was newly married to Aaron Nichols, her high school sweetheart who had joined the U.S. Marines.
When Aaron was posted to the Marine Corps Air Station in Yuma, Ariz., she went with him.
She landed a job as a reporter at a small TV station, but what she really wanted to do was work in children’s programming at PBS.
In Arizona, Nichols was able to do the next-best thing: She earned a certificate and went to work, teaching kindergarten at Ronald Reagan Elementary, a K-6 school in Yuma.
Her first day on the job was momentous — but not for that personal milestone, as she told the audience in the Culture Center on Tuesday night.
Day One of her new career was Sept. 11, 2001.
Nichols wasn’t the only teacher on the faculty with a spouse at the base facing possible deployment to a war zone.
“The principal called us in and said if we needed to take care of matters at home, she’d cover for our classes.”
As it turned out, rank carries over to domestic life in a military town, which was unbeknownst to Nichols at the time.
One of the teachers, in fact, was married to a lieutenant colonel at the base, and Nichols will never forget her response.
Everyone was staying put, in front of their classrooms, that teacher said.
That was critical, so they could help students process the events of the day — especially those who were fearful or too young to fully understand just what was happening on the other end of the country.
“She said, ‘We need to be here for our kids and we’ve got each other,’” Nichols remembered.
“Here in this room with all of you tonight, I feel the same way. We’re here for our kids, and we’ve got each other.”
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