People
And the Grammy Goes to. . .

A choral music teacher experiences the thrill of her teaching career.

As a dedicated College Park, Maryland, music teacher with 35 years in the classroom, Betty Scott thought little of Grammys and Academy Awards.

But that all changed last February, when Scott floated across the stage of the 42nd Grammy Awards in Los Angeles to accept the award for best choral performance.

"I was so euphoric, I didn't even hear my name," says the University Park Elementary School teacher. "What an incredible experience."

The Grammy was for Scott's work with the Maryland Boys Choir, an all-star group that she helped found.

In 1995, the choir sang Latin portions of Benjamin Britten's War Requiem--along with the Washington Chorus and Orchestra--at a sold-out Kennedy Center performance celebrating the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II.

National Public Radio recorded the performance, and the Washington Chorus released it, in 1999, to incredible fanfare.

Now Scott--along with her co-director and the conductor of the adult chorus, who also received Grammys for the performance--is a voting member of the Academy.

That might be a good thing, considering Scott currently directs a children's ensemble group that, over the years, has lent more than 150 of its young voices to several Grammy-nominated children's recordings.

Scott also continues to grow one of the capital area's most accomplished school music programs.

"Every year the parents panic that this will be the year I retire," smiles this NEA member. "The other day I received a letter from a former student, who's now 40 with two children of her own. She told me how much she had enjoyed my class and asked if I remembered when we used to sing 'Bye Bye Miss American Pie' in miniskirts."

"The CBS Early Show" knows people are interested in people. That's the premise behind the network's popular Friday segment called "Everybody Has a Story"--profiles of everyday Americans who are picked at random from the phone book, videotaped for a day, and shown to the rest of the country.

Last year, Janet McAteer, a school nurse at Centennial Junior High School in Casper, Wyoming, was one of those everyday people.

"I got a call from the show saying they had picked my name out of the phone book and asking if would I be interested in letting camera crews into my life for a day," she says. "I honestly thozught it was a joke, until CBS's Steve Hartman came knocking on my door with a camera man behind him."

CBS taped McAteer at school and at home, for nearly 15 hours, and also interviewed several of her students and their parents. When the 10-minute segment aired several weeks later, McAteer was pleased with what she saw.

"I was thrilled that school nursing got some publicity because it's such an important job," says this veteran nurse. "The piece reflected the emotional aspect of the work and proved that being a school nurse involves so much more than putting Band-Aids on scrapes."

Viewers were touched, as well.

"Because a good portion of the segment focused on how I had been helping one young man whose mother had died, hundreds of people contacted our district asking how they could help him," McAteer points out. "For the attention the program directed toward this boy, and the millions more like him, I am thankful."

Better Than Bowling

In 1989, Earl Ziemann--then 26 years old--was reaching his "prime" in the bowling world. He ranked 33rd in the world, traveled the nation, and earned a living playing the sport he loved.

That's when Ziemann says he did what any sensible person would do: He quit. Today, this former bowling sensation teaches U.S. history at Marina High School in Huntington Beach, California.

Now in his fifth year, Ziemann shares his experiences as both a professional athlete--and as a hard-to-reach high school student--with his own students and their parents.

Ziemann tells them about leaving his small Wisconsin town at age 19 to pursue a professional bowling career in California. He tells them about his seven years on tour and about the most important lesson he learned along the way: the value of education.

"During my final year on tour, I couldn't help but notice that many of the top bowlers, once they passed their prime in their mid-30s, had very few options, because they didn't have an education," he says.

So Ziemann left bowling to pursue a college degree and earn his teaching certificate.

"I would probably be the last person that my high school teachers would have expected to become a teacher," he says with a laugh. "I'm proof that education gives you choices."

Teaching's Real McCoys

In nearly a combined century of teaching, Emma and Lottie McCoy have seen a lot--nearly all of it in distant lands. From Pakistan to Bermuda, the two sisters have traveled the world over, learning exotic languages, exploring new cultures, and advancing the educational experiences of children in overseas United States Department of Defense schools.

Lottie, left, now retired at the age of 82, set out to teach elementary music in 1954 after seeing recruitment ads in the local newspaper. Why did she leave her home in Columbus, Ohio, for the great unknown?

"Nothing ventured, nothing gained," Lottie chuckles.

Lottie and Emma have taught in almost every setting imaginable. In Ethiopia, they held classes in a converted house. In Japan, they set up in trailers. Whatever the facility, the sisters always made sure their kids had the latest American texts.

"Everyone," says Emma, "believed in helping each other."

Emma is currently teaching in Okinawa, Japan. She followed her sister overseas in 1957 and has taught composition and reading skills to children ever since.

"I keep teaching because I really enjoy children," she says. "They keep me young."

Not Just for the Sport of It

Baseball fans, take heart: Juiced-up baseballs are not behind the increase in homeruns hit this past season.

That's the finding that comes out of NEA member Jim Sherwood's work as part of the Mechanical Engineering department at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell.

Since 1995, Sherwood and his students have worked with Major League Baseball and the NCAA--testing bats and balls.

Earlier this year, the university's Baseball Research Center--which, under Sherwood's direction, has become the official testing center for college and professional baseball--was asked to figure out why 15 percent more baseballs were flying out of parks this year than last.

"Fans were alleging that the balls were being 'juiced up' to increase interest in the game," says Sherwood. "The majors wanted statistical data to address these accusations."

Over the course of months, Sherwood and his students tested nearly 200 baseballs for speed and consistency. They used hitting machines, white ash walls (simulating wood bats), and some good old statistical analysis.

Their findings, released in June, pleased everyone.

"All of the baseballs met specifications," he says. "It's not the baseballs that have changed--it's the players, who work out more, and this obviously affects their strength."