A teacher in Alaska has been hailed as a hero for rescuing a young girl from the icy waters of the Johnson River.
Michael Warme, a substitute teacher at the Akiuk Memorial School in the village of Kasigluk, was walking with his wife along the river Nov. 4 when the couple stopped to chat with two people who were ice fishing.
They heard a yell for help: seven-year-old Allyn Wassillie had fallen through the thin ice covering the river.
Mr. Warme ran out to the girl, who was in a hole about 25 yards from shore. He spread out on the ice to distribute his weight as he approached the hole, then grabbed the girl’s wrists and pulled her up. Though a little shaken and very wet, the two were unharmed.
Thomas Fowler-Finn has been selected as the superintendent of the Fort Wayne, Ind., public schools. Mr. Fowler-Finn will replace William Coats--who is the president of the Michigan Partnership for New Education--at the helm of the state’s second-largest district. The selection of a superintendent has created controversy in the 32,000-student district. In October, a group of black residents unhappy with the selection process filed a lawsuit against the Fort Wayne district, claiming it excluded black candidates from recent superintendent searches. The lawsuit is pending, but district officials said Mr. Fowler-Finn will take his post in late January.
Wendy Kopp, the founder of Teach for America, has found a place in TIME magazine’s list of the top 50 young leaders in America, published last week. The Princeton graduate brought her college thesis to life by creating a corp of college graduates willing to teach in underprivileged school districts across the nation.
The Council of Chief State School Officers has elected Ted Sanders to be its next president. Mr. Sanders, the Ohio superintendent of public instruction, will serve as president-elect until November 1995, when he will begin a one-year term as president. Bob R. Etheridge, the North Carolina state school superintendent, and Robert V. Antonucci, the Massachusetts commissioner of education, have been elected to the C.C.S.S.O.'s board of directors. The council is a nonprofit organization of 57 public officials who head departments of elementary and secondary education.
