Fort Mill school board honors teacher, bookkeeper

A teacher and bookkeeper were honored as tops among their peers by the Fort Mill school board earlier this month.

The district’s 2015 Teacher of the Year is Danielle Lennon, nominated as an Honor Roll Teacher of the Year and a former eighth grade social studies teacher at Banks Trail. Lennon is now a social studies teacher at Nation Ford High School. Lennon was one of five honor roll teacher finalists selected last spring.

Hope Trigg, a bookkeeper at Tega Cay Elementary School, was named the district’s 2015 Support Person of the Year.

“The finalists were chosen by a district panel of administrators and teachers using the State’s TOY rubric, with the top five chosen as our honor roll finalists,” said Marty McGinn, assistant superintendent of curriculum and Personnel.

Lennon began her Fort Mill School District career in 2005 as a teacher at Gold Hill Middle School. She then moved to Banks Trail when it opened in 2011. Lennon received her Bachelor’s of Arts and an M.Ed. in Curriculum and Instruction from Winthrop University. She has held leadership positions, including social studies departmental roles at Gold Hill and Banks Trail, and was instrumental in leading Veterans Day and Black History Month events as well ashistorical field trips.

“The district’s (Teacher of the Year) plays an integral leadership and communications role within our school family,” Superintendent Chuck Epps said.

Lennon will serve as president of a Teachers Forum made up of 39 Teachers of the Year from across the state.

“These leaders not only represent all our teachers, but they also play an active role in public education advocacy, professional development support, service and community outreach,” Epps said.

Former attendance secretary

Trigg’s first school-home when she started with the FMSD in 1998 was Gold Hill Elementary School, where she was an attendance secretary. In 2006, Trigg became GHES’s bookkeeper, a position she held for 13 years until she assumed an interim-bookkeeper position for Doby’s Bridge and Tega Cay Elementary Schools while both schools were under construction.

She became Tega Cay’s bookkeeper when the school opened in 2014. Trigg will represent Tega Cay Elementary and other support personnel as a key member of the FMSD’s Support Staff Liaison Committee, which regularly meets with district administration.

Lennon and Trigg will both receive a prize and cash package worth more than $1,500, donated by South State Bank, Family Trust and Leroy Springs and Co. Jostens will also create a custom signet ring for Lennon.

Both winners will also have the use of a new vehicle for one year.

Now in its third year of supporting the program, Stateline Chrysler-Jeep-Dodge will supply the vehicle Lennon can use for a year.

Rock Hill Toyota, which has contributed the use of a vehicle to the district’s support staff winner for the past two years, will present Trigg with a 2015 Toyota Camry SE.

This story was originally published September 15, 2015 at 5:51 PM with the headline "Fort Mill school board honors teacher, bookkeeper."