Top Educators

Braeden Kershner - Charleston County School District
Braeden Kershner was named first runner up for Charleston County School District’s Teacher of the Year. The district employs approximately 4,000 teachers, of which Kershner was selected as one of five finalists.

Angela Adams - Berkeley County School District
Angela Ballard Adams, an education graduate, was selected as Berkeley County School District’s 2011 Teacher of the Year. Adams is a sixth-grade teacher at Hanahan Middle School.

Braeden Kershner - Charleston County School District
Charleston County School District named Braeden Kershner, a SWU music education graduate, as the first CCSD Teacher of the Month for the 2009-2010 school year.

Darian Byrd - School District of Pickens County
The Pickens County School Board named Darian Byrd as new principal of Forest Acres Elementary School in Easley, S.C.

Michel Justus - School District of Pickens County
Michel Justus, a 1995 graduate of Southern Wesleyan University, recently received the 2010 Outstanding Biology Teacher Award for South Carolina from the National Association of Biology Teachers.

Christie Lee Vaughn - School District of Pickens County
Christie Lee Vaughn, a 1992 Southern Wesleyan University biology graduate and sixth-grade science teacher, was chosen by Gettys Middle School in Easley, S.C., as Teacher of the Year for 2010-11.

Justin Petersen - Anderson County School District 4
Justin Petersen was named as 2010 Middle Level Social Studies Teacher of the Year by Riverside Middle School in Pendleton, S.C.

Sheila Beasley - School District of Pickens County
Sheila Beasley, an education graduate, was named 2010-11 School District of Pickens County Teacher of the Year. Beasley is a second-grade teacher at East End Elementary in Easley, S.C.

Letrece McCoy - Willow Spring Elementary School
McCoy, a 2009 master of education graduate of Southern Wesleyan University in North Augusta, has since been recognized for her innovation in the classroom and outstanding achievements as an educator. In 2009, she was named the school’s teacher of the year.

Nikki Mock - Aiken County School District
Mock, a 2008 Southern Wesleyan University North Augusta M.Ed. graduate and fifth-grade reading and writing teacher at Hammond Hill Elementary School in North Augusta, S.C., was recently named Teacher of the Year by the Aiken County School District.

Lisa Gilliard - Greenville County Schools
Education alum Lisa Gilliard loves to be around children and to watch them learn. Through working with children at her church and in her community, Lisa started to realize there was so much more she could do, so she enrolled in the School of Education at Southern Wesleyan.

Debbie Holcombe - Byrnes High School
Byrnes High School physical education teacher and coach Debbie Holcombe was selected as the 2009 High School Physical Education Teacher of the Year for the southern district.

Ruth Anne Potts - Lexington County School District 2
Airport High School saluted Ruth Anne Potts, a 2004 Southern Wesleyan University graduate, as Teacher of the Year for 2010-2011. Potts, who works with the freshman program at Airport High in West Columbia, S.C., is one of the first faces incoming freshmen see.