IF Sharon Reid has an extra spring in her steps as she enters her office at the St Andrew High School for Girls in Kingston this morning, it’s because Lasco has named her Principal of the Year.

Reid, who was selected from among five candidates from five of the six educational regions in the island, yesterday became the inaugural recipient of the Principal of the Year award.

Meanwhile, at the Porus Primary School in Manchester, students and teachers will no doubt this morning still be congratulating teacher Beverly Tulloch-Danvers for winning the Teacher of the Year Award.

Tulloch-Danvers, who was selected from among six candidates representing all six educational regions, became the eighth recipient of that award.

In addition to receiving trophies, both women also took home cash prizes of $100,000 each, gift baskets from Johnson and Johnson and cellular phones from Digicel. Tulloch-Danvers will also get a chance to attend an annual international teacher’s conference overseas, courtesy of both Lasco and Air Jamaica.

In her acceptance speech, Reid thanked all the people who were involved in the selection process.

“I deem it an honour and privilege to stand before you as the recipient of this award. To be honest, I deem it a privilege just to be a finalist, so this is icing on the cake. It feels good to be the inaugural winner of the Principal of the Year Award,” Reid said.

“This job is certainly not one for the faint-hearted, but it certainly does not mean that one person can run a school. I want to pay special thanks to the St Andrew High School team,” the principal added.

Tulloch-Danvers, for her part, pledged to maintain the nobility and the respectability of the teaching profession.

“The profession of the teacher is the noblest of all and I will continue to uphold that tradition,” she said. “Ours is the task of sculpting the moral leaders of tomorrow. Even if each of us succeeds in teaching [only] one child, we must remember our goal is to serve,” she added.

In addition to Reid and Tulloch-Danvers, Lasco also honoured the runner-up in the Principal of the Year category, Yvonne Miller-Wisdom of Success Primary.

Lasco also presented all eleven finalists with $20,000, gift baskets, plaques commemorating their selection, and spa packages.

Lascelles Chin, chairman and CEO of the Lasco group, used the occasion to urge Jamaicans to become more involved in upgrading the nation’s schools and helping to improve the education system.

“Friends, we cannot bury our heads in the sand. The teachers and administrators of today face more challenges than ever before. Schools are grappling with serious issues such as security and moral decay, and all the stakeholders – school boards, teachers, parents, students and community members – must join hands and hearts together to ensure that our children get a first-class education.”

Keynote speaker at the awards ceremony Dr Herbert Thompson, made a call for members of the private sector to follow in Lasco’s footsteps. He said more businesses should seek to honour police officers, nurses and teaches, whom he described as being members of the nation’s “unsung” professions.

Noting that the eleven finalists for the awards were all females, Thompson lamented the diminishing number of men entering the teaching profession. He said students need role models of both genders to ensure their proper maturation into adults.