News

Principal is DARE educator of year

Ocean County Observer - May 2009

TUCKERTON - Tuckerton Elementary School Principal Rebecca Overholt has been named the DARE Educator of the Year for the state of New Jersey. Overholt received the honor April 29 at the Governor's Awards for Education presented at Trump Marina in Atlantic City.

Overholt was nominated by Tuckerton DARE officer Cpl. Matt Caufield, for her dedication to education, her commitment to her students and for being a role model in her job and her fight with cancer.

Caufield surprised her April 22 in the school library with the announcement that she was chosen for the award. Several staff members and Caufield were in the library when she entered. Caufield asked her to read his nominating letter that brought tears to her eyes and she needed a handkerchief to finish reading the accolades. He cited her dedication to students, starting as a teacher, then becoming principal, completing chemotherapy and completing her doctorate degree in education. Caufield and she hugged.

Lightening the mood, the staff reminded her about a little boy who had asked her why she was wearing a hat. "I told him my husband has given it to me and I had to wear it," she said. "He said, "You sure must love your husband to wear that hat.'

"I wouldn't be here if it weren't for the teachers and staff who saved my job for me," she said. She said her brother, John Canine, a psychologist in Detroit, e-mailed her all the time through her diagnosis, treatment and recovery. They put it together in a book to be published by Pleasant Word, a division of WinePress. "We hope it can help someone else who is traveling a similar road," she said. "When people get a cancer diagnosis, they think they are going to die and I did too. One of the things my brother did was help me connect with the idea that I may die but not today."

She went through five surgeries, double chemotherapy and triple radiation and finished treatment June 20, 2007. Sue Madsen, a kindergarten teacher at the school, died of cancer July 28, 2007. "It was a sad time for the whole school," Overholt recalled. "Through all that, she goes back for her doctorate degree," Caufield said. She and Sandy Szabocsick who did the same data collection for her doctorate, along with Bill Firestone, dean of Rutgers University School of Education, presented their research at the American Educational Research Association in California. "We taught a class to administrators. We analyzed the practices of leaders," she said.

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