OSAGE - Teacher Cyndi Spears loves listening to children and watching them create. Next to her classroom door is a sign: "Creative Thinking Center, Ms. Spears."

Inside, another reads: "In this room we do not learn how to be an artist. Instead we learn how art touches our lives in the past, present, and future. We learn to find the artist inside us … "

That passion is part of the reason Spears was selected the 2008-09 Elementary Art Teacher of the Year in Iowa. She was recognized at the Art Educators of Iowa conference recently in Dubuque.

A former student, Jessica Schwab Balsley, nominated Spears.

Spears graduated from Wartburg College in 1978 and taught for three years in Fayette.

She arrived in Osage in 1982.

Spears teaches nearly 500 students in kindergarten through sixth grades and has a high school art class in the second semester.

"I travel to all three school buildings four times every day," she says. "I'm on the move a lot."

Elementary Principal Mark Knudtson says Spears "is extremely deserving of this honor."

"She is as enthusiastic about her teaching now as when she first started as a teacher," he says.

As a teacher, Spears says she wonders if students are absorbing the philosophy.

"Then, when you least expect it, one of them comes along and affirms your hopes," she says.

"I have had so many unexpected memory makers from present and past students who have been impacted by my class. They warm my heart and drive my passion."

Contact Warren Haacke at

newsroom@wcfcourier.com.