Lincoln East's Andrea Kabourek win Distinguished Educator Award

            Andrea Kabourek, an English and journalism teacher at Lincoln East High School, has been awarded the 2012 Freda Drath Battey Distinguished Educator Award from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln College of Education and Human Sciences.

            Kabourek is credited by East principal Susan Cassata with leading East's School Improvement Team the last three years and helping lead the school through the development of new goal and action steps -- despite back-to-back battles with breast cancer and leukemia in recent years.

            "She resumed her teaching in January 2012 . . . right where she left off," Cassata wrote in a letter supporting Kabourek's candidacy for the award. "She has tackled her teaching with a renewed enthusiasm and commitment to enjoy adolescents, learn as much as she can and live large."

            Kabourek received an inscribed school bell and a check for $6,000. East received $3,000.

            A 1999 graduate of Nebraska Wesleyan University, Kabourek has taught a variety of English and journalism classes at East since 2000, including English 9, a class for students who have been indentified as having reading and writing deficiences. She has also served as an assistant track coach and a volunteer assistant cross country coach for the Spartans.

            "Andrea is always willing to accept new roles and bend them to her will," wrote William Dimon, chair of East's English department. "Andrea understands that all opportunities improve her teaching and develop her leadership, but she also recognizes that what we do as educators we do for our students, a charge that Andrea takes very seriously."

            The Freda Drath Battey Distinguished Educator Award is given each year to an exemplary Nebraska secondary school teacher who has demonstrated excellence in teaching and in support of students in extracurricular activities. Candidates are nominated by students in the UNL College of Education and Human Sciences. The winner is selected by a committee of faculty and students from the college.

            The award was established in 1986 by Joan and Charles W. Battey of Shawnee Mission, Kan., and Marian (Battey) and Harold W. Andersen of Omaha to commemorate the life and career of their mother and mother-in-law, Freda Drath Battey, a 1923 graduate of the University of Nebraska Teachers College who was a public school teacher in Ashland.

Writer: Tom Simons, University Communications, 402-472-8514