Laura Tracy Baisden Award for Exemplary Teaching of Writing
Dr. MG Gainer, a teacher at Calhoun County Middle High School in Mount Zion, West Virginia, has been honored as the recipient of the 2023 Laura Tracy Baisden Award for Exemplary Teaching of Writing. This award was established by the Central WV Writing Project to recognize outstanding teachers of writing in West Virginia and commemorate the life and work of Laura Tracy Baisden, a respected educator and advocate for young writers.
Dr. MG Gainer returned to Calhoun after 20 years slightly north in Pennsylvania. Living and teaching high school in the same county she grew up in provides a strange juxtaposition of past and present. She is the Faculty Senate President for her building, serves on her building and county leadership teams, and assists other teachers with Teams and writing across the curriculum tasks. Her bachelor’s in education comes from Glenville State University. At the encouragement of her professors there, she embarked on a massive graduate school adventure. Her master’s and doctoral degrees in English come from the Indiana University of Pennsylvania. She lives in Calhoun County with her family, where she takes many pictures of her dog and writes poetry to explain life to herself and anyone interested. She tries to live life by two tenets: people who aren’t helping don’t get to complain and leave things better than you found them. Having been on the picket line for higher education and now public education, she knows the work must continue if a strong, affordable education is to remain available to all students. It seems full circle to return to the state where she was introduced to the labor movement by a puppet show about Mother Jones that visited her elementary school.
In her speech at Young Writers Day held at Charleston University on May 5th, 2023, Dr. Gainer expressed her gratitude for the trust her students place in her as they share their stories. She emphasized the importance of listening and working together to refine and shape their narratives. Dr. Gainer also highlighted the significance of students being able to write their own stories and read the stories of others, encouraging a continued dedication to writing and passing down lessons through storytelling.
It's always inspiring to see educators who are dedicated to their profession and go above and beyond to support their students. Dr. Gainer's commitment to her craft and the students at Calhoun County Middle High School is commendable. Teachers play a vital role in shaping the lives of their students, and their passion and dedication can have a lasting impact. It's great to acknowledge and appreciate the hard work of educators like Dr. Gainer who make a positive difference in the lives of their students. A short excerpt of her speech can be found below.
"As long as I have been teaching, students have been trusting me with their stories. Sometimes that is both the grandest and most gut-wrenching part of my job. They will tell me what they have never said out loud. They’ll pour their joy and pain, their triumph and defeat out and hand it to me. Together we work on it to make it cleaner, sharper. Focused. The revision is a refinement. But to do this work they have to trust me and I have to be ready to really listen to what, to who they are.
And so, I would say with my voice today in this space allotted to me that mountain folks need to always be free to write their own stories and to read the stories of others. May we keep writing in truth and keep passing those lessons down.”