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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 10, 2002

News Release

Mississippi Student Receives NEA Award

Service is the spice of Star Wallin's life

Washington, D.C. -- During her 17 short years, Star Wallin of Hattiesburg, Miss., has completed a lifetime worth of public service.

That's according to our standards, not Wallin's. "These are the values my family holds," says Wallin, who has worked with disadvantaged families, needy children, the elderly and animals through Project CARE, the student led service organization she started at the tender age of 15. "Being aware of others' needs has been instilled in me for a long time," adds Wallin, who graduated from Hattiesburg High May 26. "Community service really fulfills me."

Wallin will make one stop before heading for Vanderbilt University where she'll begin studying as an Ingram Scholar this fall: She will be in Dallas July 1 to receive a National Education Association Human and Civil Rights Award.

NEA President Bob Chase will honor Wallin and 10 other human and civil rights activists during the 36th annual awards dinner at the Adam's Mark Hotel in Dallas. More than 2,000 educators and invited guests are expected to attend the event, held each year during the NEA's annual meeting. Each award is named in honor of a prominent human and civil rights leader or NEA activist. Wallin, who has Catawba Indian roots, will receive the Suanne Big Crow Memorial Award. This award, presented annually to a student under age 20, is named after an American Indian teen from South Dakota who worked hard to give her peers on the reservation a greater sense of self-worth and dignity. SuAnne Big Crow died in an auto accident in 1992 at age 17.

This is not the first time Wallin has been recognized nationally. Last November, President George W. Bush named her a Daily Point of Light. Mississippi Governor Ronnie Musgrove gave her a 2001 Youth Award for Outstanding Volunteer Service.

Back home in Hattiesburg, where she's a star in her own right, Wallin's Project Care initiatives include teaching lessons in environmental awareness to third graders, restocking a memorial garden at her high school, providing foster care and placement for unwanted dogs and cats, delivering dinner baskets to needy families and collecting food, furniture and clothing for families devastated by fire.

Wallin, an honors student taking advanced placement courses, hails from a long line of educators. Her great grandfather, grandmother, mother, aunt and two sisters are educators. Her mother, Dr. Penny Wallin, is assistant superintendent of Hattiesburg Public Schools.

As an Ingram Scholar, Wallin will receive a stipend to create a service project anywhere in the world. "There's so much to do outside of my community,'' she says. "I think I'm ready to share the message of kindness and compassion on a much larger level."

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The National Education Association is the nation’s largest professional employee organization, representing 2.7 million elementary and secondary teachers, higher education faculty, education support professionals, school administrators, retired educators, and students preparing to become teachers.