[ By RAY HEMMAN ]
[ USD 308 ]
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — With the 2016-17 school year winding down, three Hutchinson Public Schools staff members have received district honors.
Martin Vieyra, Title I aide at Graber Elementary School, has been named Classified Employee of the Year. Jesse Ediger, fourth grade teacher at Graber, and Chanin Aumiller, social studies teacher at Hutchinson Middle School – 8, have been nominated as the district’s entries in the Kansas National Teacher of the Year competition.
Still to be named are the Davis Teachers of the Year. The Davis Foundation will formally announce the finalists and the winners at the district’s back-to-school convocation in August.
Martin Vieyra
Classified Employee of the Year
Graber Title I Aide
After more than 40 years in education, Martin Vieyra isn’t ready to head off to a rocking chair.
“I love what I do so I was happy to get this job,” he said recently. “I am not ready to give up kids.”
Vieyra is the district’s Classified Employee of the Year.
The educator taught for a total of 39 years at Winans and Wiley elementary schools before retiring a first time in 2013. He came back for two more years as a teacher at Wiley. Then two years ago, Vieyra decided he’d like to quit taking home papers to grade and preparing lesson plans and became an educational aide at Graber Elementary School.
Vieyra has been well respected throughout his career. He was a Davis Teacher of the Year twice (2000 and 2012) and was the district’s elementary nominee for Kansas Teacher of the Year once.
His wife, Sandra, also was a teacher for USD 308 for 35 years. While their sons didn’t go into education, the two women their sons married are educators – Ashleigh Vieyra who teaches at Graber, and Shannon Vieyra who will be a new third grade teacher in USD 313’s Plum Creek School this fall.
“I love this building, the faculty and the people I work with,” Vieyra said.
The other two finalists for Classified Employee of the Year were Sherry Treece, resource room aide at Hutchinson Middle School – 7, and Jamie Brown, payroll/benefits coordinator at the Administration Center.
Other top-10 candidates were Judy Teichmann, educational aide at Wiley; Patty Chappell, head custodian at McCandless Elementary School; Vickie Thomas, special education secretary at the Educational Services Center; Craig Jackson, custodian at Hutchinson High School; Joanna Johnson, financial purchasing secretary at the Hutchinson Career and Technical Education Academy; Peggy Sneath, library aide at Faris Elementary School; and Bonnie Westfahl, resource room aide at HMS-7.
Jesse Ediger
Elementary Teacher of the Year Nominee
Graber Fourth Grade Teacher
When young thespian Jesse Ediger left Hutchinson for college, she had dreams of making it big in Hollywood. She loved the stage and wanted to be an actress while attending college.
Then reality set in. Hollywood is a tough place to break into. Ediger returned to Hutchinson and 
became a para in a school. She fell in love with education. The paraprofessional position allowed her to see the power of making a connection with students and seeing them make the connection with education.
Plus, she found out she gets to “act” to boot.
“Teaching is acting,” she said. “You go up on a stage each day and you keep kids involved and engaged. Just like acting, it changes every day.”
Ediger is teaching in the same building she attended elementary school. She attended Graber, Liberty Middle School (now HMS-8) and Hutchinson High School. She joined the Graber staff in 2008-09.
In 2009, Ediger received the statewide Horizon Award from the Kansas State Board of Education, given to top first-year teachers. She also was a Davis Foundation Teacher of the Year award winner in 2013.
She is a member of the Kansas Exemplary Educators Network and serves on the Graber building leadership team.
And, yes, Ediger still enjoys theater.
Chanin Aumiller
Elementary Teacher of the Year Nominee
HMS-8 Social Studies Teacher
Chanin Aumiller may know Hutchinson Middle School – 8 better than anyone else – both as a student and as a teacher.
Aumiller was in the first seventh grade class to attend the then-Liberty Middle School when it reopened in 1983. The building had been closed for a couple years in the early 1980s for reconstruction
from a bond issue. Next fall, she will be the longest-serving staff member at HMS-8.
She also had spent considerable time in other USD 308 schools. Her mother, Kay Southards, was a librarian in the district “forever,” Aumiller said. She had no siblings so she spent a lot of time in district schools with her mom after school, on weekends and in the summer. Her mother retired from the district in 2004.
She began her education at Faris and Roosevelt elementary schools, then to Liberty and finally to HHS where she graduated in 1989.
Next door colleague Brian Brillhart, who teaches English, and Becki Ackley, who teaches math one floor down, also are HHS grads. Working with other district graduates is special.
“Brian was a former student of mine,” she said.
Aumiller serves on various social studies committees in the district. She also is head of the HMS-8 Social Studies Department, in charge of guiding curriculum and preparing students for state tests. She’s also previously been a Davis Foundation Teacher of the Year.
Like many middle school teachers, Aumiller has found her corner of the educational world. When she first came to the district as a December graduate, she spent time in a variety of classrooms as a substitute teacher, including elementary schools. She asked the staff member who placed subs to put her in a secondary school.
“It (teaching middle school) is your thing or not,” she said.