On February 22nd, HHS Science teacher Mr. Cory Grage was named teacher of the year for Hancock High School. The school’s staff annually nominates teachers for the award.

Grage reflects on his years of teaching and regards his relationship with students as an achievement.

“It’s a combination of my relationship with a number of my students,” Grage said.  “Just having my students when I won, having them when it was announced on Twitter, making comments about me being their favorite teacher, and them really loving me or missing me is one.”

After teaching for 20 years, Grage said he is still “content and happy” here.  He attributes this being able to keep up with the culture of our day and age. 

“You gotta change with the kids sometimes. It takes some time to get ready for the next group of kids. I gotta get with the times.” Grage said. He continued to say that his “adaptability” is a trait that the teacher of the year should have.

For Grage, teaching wasn’t his first choice, but this is how he came to the decision.

“So I wanted to get into environmental science and then started taking education classes while I was in college, and I kinda fell in love with the idea of teaching so sort of conjoined the two together.” Garage said.

Assistant Principal Mr. Austin Ferguson was one of the people who reviewed the various nominations this year.

“A couple of teachers went through and wrote him nominations for stuff they would see him do either throughout the day or they know he stayed late to work on things,” Ferguson said. “I know he does a lot of stuff for the play and stuff like that and he’s super friendly and generally a really nice guy,”

Ferguson had plenty of things to say about Grage, but all were about how great of a teacher he has been.

“Mr. Grage was submitted to the selection committee for his ability to lead his classroom and to build and establish rapport with his students as well as other staff members in the building, and also for his creation in different hands-on lesson activities for not only his science classes but also the stuff he does in shop,” Ferguson said. “And is always willing to kinda go out of his way just to make sure everybody in the building is getting what they need and really goes above and beyond just the regular expectations of a teacher; he does way more than what an average teacher would do. He goes above and beyond his contract.”

Garage’s students, such as Zaid Al-Saadi (9), share these thoughts about Mr. Grage.

“He’s a very interesting individual, but I love the way he teaches,” Al-Saadi said.“ He’s very deserving of the award he won.”