Over the course of her 30-year teaching career as a seventh grade English instructor at Purcell Junior High, Angie Wren has been awarded numerous grants funded by the Purcell Public
School Foundation.

But this year’s grant earned Wren the prestigious Jayne N. Montgomery Award.

The esteemed award is not an annual award, but is saved for the most innovative of grants submitted by teachers from all four campuses.

Only the most ingenious and ground breaking grants qualify for the award.

This year’s grant application “How Far Can A Kind Word Go” met the criteria for the highest award given by the foundation for a grant proposal.

She not only received the funding for the project, $432, but the plaque that will hang in her school room for the entire year. Her name will forever be a part of the plaque only won by a few teachers over the years.

“We are going to practice writing skills,” Mrs. Wren explained. “Kids are going to write letters to people across the country and around the world.

“We are going to mail the letters with kind words and see what kind of feedback we can get,” she continued.

Students will make a ‘kind word’ by decorating the word KIND on card stock and will send their KIND word to someone outside of Purcell, or even outside of Oklahoma.

The program will be one more arrow in her quiver of ways to encourage students to write, which is both her most gratifying part of teaching and at the same time her most challenging part of her job.

“Many students are reluctant to write and this will help them gain confidence, getting them in a better mood about writing,” Mrs. Wren said.

“Some students just don’t like it,” she continued. “I think students these days are a little more distracted and this is a way to try and get them to engage.”

With the school year still pretty young, the program is just unfolding.

“I just got the materials in the other day,” she said.

The crafty English teacher said she has some tricks up her sleeve.

“I have a couple of NFL football friends and I know some people in India (Cooper and Lauren Frankenberg) and German Exchange Student Paul Glorius is staying with the Bargers again this year. We know his parents in Germany and expect all of these people to give us feed back.”

She is hoping to get photos of things in India and Germany and who knows what from the NFL players.

“It’ll be fun and engaging to connect with someone outside the classroom,” Mrs. Wren said. “Getting feedback is part of the project giving words of kindness back to us.”

Mrs. Wren reports to The Purcell Register she expects to get return mail within a couple of weeks from sending them out.

“I’ve always had good luck sending things outside the district. I think it will be cool,” she said with her patented grin.

Mrs. Wren teaches five sections of seventh grade English and has 107 students.

“Angie Wren is most deserving of this award,” said her principal Rowdy Cole.

“I began in education 34 years ago and Angie is as dedicated and impactful in the classroom as I’ve seen.

“Her commitment to her craft as well as her innovation is on display every day. Purcell Junior High, as well as Purcell Public Schools, is lucky to have Angie on the frontlines everyday,” Cole concluded.

Mrs. Wren has taught at Purcell for 29 of her 30 years in the profession.

She serves on the Executive Board of Oklahoma Council of Teachers of English as the Region 5 Officer.

Angie also coaches the seventh and eighth grade cheer squad.

“We practice once a week for about two hours and we did that during the summer, too. It’s about all we can get in because I’ve got softball players and cross country runners. They are all busy,” she said.

Now maybe her students will get even busier, opening mail from their new pen pals.