Ohio TESOL 2021 Lifetime Achievement Award Winner

Congratulations Denise Lepe Perkins!

This year’s recipient of the Ohio TESOL Lifetime Achievement Award was Denise Lepe Perkins. She received the award in June, 2021 at a school event.

She was nominated by Corbin Moore, who wrote the following about her life’s work: 

Denise Lepe Perkins has been a powerful force and advocate for Hispanic students and English Language Learners in Southwest Ohio for 43 years. Her teaching career began in 1978 in Middletown, where she taught Spanish at the junior high and high school, and later she served the district as one of the district’s ESL Coordinators. She also taught and performed Mexican Folkloric Dance and took groups of students to Dayton’s International Festival to perform. Denise officially retired in the Spring of 2013, but anyone that knows Denise knows that retirement is only a word to her. She continued as a scorekeeper for the Middies and worked for the Butler County ESC before coming to Hamilton to work as a Native Language Support Specialist in 2015.

Throughout her career, Denise has dedicated herself to celebrating our future bilingual students and continually reaches out and looks out for them and their families. She will do whatever it takes (during and after school hours) to help a student and parent feel welcome and to facilitate communication between our EL families and our school. She has a true love for English Learners and has been an invaluable asset to our school families in Middletown and Hamilton. Denise is an inspiration to us all. In recent years, she has suffered from illness, but it has never dampened her spirit. She comes to work every day (even through a global pandemic) to serve our students to the best of her ability. We are all blessed to have had the opportunity to work with Denise. Her impact on the communities she has served is immeasurable.

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Know someone worthy of an Ohio TESOL award? — Members can make nominations here!