BOONE, NC, May 22, 2020 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Marquis Who's Who, the world's premier publisher of biographical profiles, is proud to present Roberta Jones Austin with the Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award. An accomplished listee, Ms. Austin celebrates many years' experience in her professional network, and has been noted for achievements, leadership qualities, and the credentials and successes she has accrued in her field. As in all Marquis Who's Who biographical volumes, individuals profiled are selected on the basis of current reference value. Factors such as position, noteworthy accomplishments, visibility, and prominence in a field are all taken into account during the selection process.
Now retired from a career in education that spanned over 35 years, Ms. Austin earned distinction as an elementary schoolteacher. First hired by Denver Public Schools in 1971, she taught music to seventh and eighth grade students and continued her studies in elementary education at the Denver Extension Center of the University of Colorado. She later taught sixth grade at an elementary school in nearby Northglenn, where she chaired the teacher's curriculum committee. Subsequently relocating to Los Angeles, she excelled with the Playhouse Preschool in 1972 before ultimately settling in Boone, North Carolina. Devoting nearly 25 years to the Watauga County Schools, she taught a variety of subjects at different grade levels from first through eighth, and spent several summers as a singer-actress in the new outdoor drama, "Horn in the West."
Outside of her full-time commitments in the classroom, Ms. Austin found success as the director of the afterschool program and community school at the Hardin Park School in Boone between 1980 and 1985. She was also an instructor for the Writing Workshop for Teachers on several occasions throughout the 1980s and early 1990s. Ms. Austin is the proud author of "Are We There Yet." Published through Page Publishing in 2020, it is a reflection on many of her significant career and life experiences between 1930 and 2020. She previously edited "Granddaddy's Memoirs" in 2019 for author Ned Austin, was included in "In the Shadows of Howard's Knob" in 1990, which is a compilation of teacher's writings, and was the editor of "Out of Our Children's Minds" in 1967, which is a compilation of children's writings.
Throughout the length of her career, Ms. Austin has been engaged in various community initiatives. While living and working in Denver, she was a precinct worker of the Democratic Party and was a volunteer coordinator of the Summer Youth Employment Program. In North Carolina, she worked as a tutor and coordinator of the English as a Second Language Program for High Country Amigos. Ms. Austin also excelled as the treasurer, vice president, president and choir director of the Boone Unitarian Universalist Fellowship and the president of the Parents, Family and Friends of Lesbians and Gays of Boone. She has remained active on the Boone chapter of the North Carolina Center for International Understanding since 1993.
Ms. Austin attended Queens College in Charlotte, where she acquired a Bachelor of Science in public school music in 1952. She later completed postgraduate coursework in the school of education at the University of Colorado between 1962 and 1964 before receiving a Master of Arts in administration and supervision at Appalachian State University in 1981. Furthermore, Ms. Austin is a certified elementary and music teacher and school administrator in the state of North Carolina.
To remain aware of developments affecting her academic career, Ms. Austin has been aligned as a member of the National Education Association, and is a former two-time faculty representative of the North Carolina Education Association. She is also a member of the International Friendship Connection. In light of her numerous accomplishments in the field, Ms. Austin was named as the North Carolina Teacher of the World by the Children's Museum About the World in 1993.
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