Elona Medina, technology and media teacher, Alamosa High School
“Change” is a word Elona Medina is well familiar with in her work as the technology and media teacher for Alamosa High School. The word “adapt” is another.
“It’s completely different,” she says of her instruction. “I teach all digital media now and there was not a whole lot of that when I first started.”
For her work in helping students tell the story of Alamosa High, Medina was presented with the Adams State University Educator Highlight Award during a presentation this week by Curtis Garcia and faculty and staff from the Adams State School of Education.
“Elona puts in so much time with her students teaching them aspects of technology and media. She takes time outside of school to work with students in videography of extracurricular events,” noted Larissa Pettigrew in her nomination of Medina.
Hers is a teaching career that almost never came to be. Her dad, Eugene Medina, who taught for three decades at Sierra Grande in Fort Garland, at first talked her out of becoming a teacher like him.
“When I was going to graduate from high school, I said, ‘Dad. I think I’m going to be a teacher. He said, ‘Don’t, don’t do it.’ He talked me out of it, so I got an accounting degree and did that for 10 years.”
As Medina learned, if teaching is in your life calling, you will find a way to the classroom, which she did.
“I needed people,” she said of the lonely world of accounting. “So I went back to school. I didn’t tell him. After I said ‘Dad I went back to school.’ He said, ‘What for?’ ‘To get a teaching license.’ He just laughed.”
The career change has worked out well for her. Her students admire her, evidenced by the popularity of the media class at Alamosa High and the skills the students learn from Medina’s instruction.
“What I teach is different. How I teach is different. But I think from Day 1 till now, I’ve always taught from my heart.
“I try to give them skills that can get them a job when they leave my classroom. I try to give them something that they can take with them and use right away.”
In a digital media world, the skills students are gaining in Medina’s classroom can prove to be invaluable. But as she knows, while the tools of today’s media can change, the main reason for her calling as a teacher will never change.
“It’s them,” she says of the classroom full of students participating in her media class at Alamosa High. “They make it fun.”
If you know a teacher like Elon Medina or any educator doing exceptional work in the San Luis Valley, make a nomination for the Adams State Educator Highlight Award.
PAST EHA WINNERS
Presley Garcia, Monte Vista special education teacher
Nick Dionisio, Alamosa High English teacher
Aaron Miltenberger, Boys & Girls Club executive director
Anna Bishop, Center High School CLD teacher
Phyllis Vigil, Sierra Grande first-grade teacher
AlexAndria Moore-Guenter, Moffat Schools secondary counselor
Omar Gonzalez, Alamosa Elementary visual art and music teacher
Leanna Brazel, Alamosa Elementary kindergarten teacher
Freddy Lawrence, Alamosa Elementary custodian
Joe Guenther, South Conejos School District
Katie Turner, Del Norte math teacher
Edwin Mondragon, Monte Vista High School agriculture teacher
Aaron Williams, GOAL High School English teacher
Miriam Baines, Alamosa High School biology and math teacher
Rachel Kellum, Moffat Schools art teacher
Darlene Pinales, Sargent School District, food service staff member
Upward Bound summer faculty, Adams State University
Erika Henderson, chemistry teacher Alamosa High School
Jay Sarason, aviation teacher, Sargent High School
Domingo Estrada, director, Semillas de la Tierra
Lisa Lucero, preschool teacher, Moffat School District
Scott Honeycutt, ASD’s transportation director and chief safety officer
Annette Sisneros, fifth-grade teacher, Alamosa Elementary
Taylor Hubbard, K-12 art teacher, Centennial School District
Lauren McKinney, science teacher, Sangre de Cristo Schools
Amanda Stagner, business teacher, Alamosa High School
Laura Hegey, third-grade teacher, Alamosa Elementary
College Assistance Migrant Program (CAMP) staff, Adams State University
Student Support Services, Adams State University
Kelly Reynolds, Sanford Elementary
Pat Naranjo, Centauri Middle School
Nikol Kelley, language arts teacher, Centauri Middle School
ABOUT THE EDUCATOR HIGHLIGHT AWARD:
This monthly award recognizes Adams State University School of Education alumni, prominent local teachers, and other educators working within or hailing from the San Luis Valley. In so doing, Adams State University hopes to build familiarity with the community as a serious destination for future educators. Nominate an educator.
