Ivens, a teacher at McMinn County High School, recently was named the Tennessee Science Teachers Association Educator of the Year. The award was presented at the TSTA’s annual conference in Franklin.

About 800 teachers attended the session, held at the Marriott hotel.

“I was just honored to be selected, especially coming from a group of peers of other science teachers from across the state,” Ivens said.

Ivens, a teacher for 19 years, is McMinn’s department head in the science department. She teaches chemistry I, honors chemistry I and chemistry II.

The daughter of Larry and Irene Russell and the husband of John Ivens began her teaching career in Hamilton County and was there for a year and a half before moving to her native McMinn County and accepting a teaching position at the high school.

In a written narrative submitted as part of the award process, Ivens wrote that she can remember sitting in a classroom at the old high school and telling one of her classmates she would never even consider becoming a teacher.

After graduating from college, her choice of careers changed, though, and she entered teaching.

“It seems now that I was at the right place at the right time,” she wrote. “Since that time I have not regretted my choice at all.”

Even though the benefits aren’t in the pay or the hours, she wrote, “the rewards are in the eyes of my students when they fully understand a truly abstract concept with which they have struggled and feel a sense of self-accomplishment or when a student returns from college and says, ‘Now I understand why you made us work so hard; my professors expect me to already know that stuff.’”

One of the accomplishments Ivens said she is most proud of is Big Kids Do Science, a program developed by Ivens and two of her science colleagues about 10 years ago. The students do a series of chemistry demonstrations for area fifth-graders in McMinn County and other area school systems.

“I believe that we are all life-long learners,” Ivens wrote. “No matter what our profession or vacation, there is always something new to learn. I feel very fortunate to be able to return to my own high school as a teacher. I am glad to be able to teach some of the valuable lessons about life that my teachers shared with me. I am glad to be able to return something to the community that gave me so much.

“I believe that to learn is to share is to teacher. Therefore, it seems only natural to me to embrace teaching as a way of life.”

Ivens was the winner in the grades 9-12 category. State winners were also announced in the elementary and higher education categories.

While the award is an affirmation of making a difference in the lives of students, Ivens said it’s also an honor she shares with the entire science department at the high school.

“We have an excellent science department,” she said. “We all work well together and everybody respects each other professionally and personally. We have a very high percentage passing the Gateway biology test.

“I attribute a lot of that not only to the current teachers in the science department but also to the leadership Peggy Barnett and Georgia Lamb provided,” Ivens said.

Both Barnett and Lamb have since retired from the McMinn faculty.

Ivens has been involved in numerous education activities and is a former president of the McMinn County Education Association.

She’s also a past winner of the Tennessee Education Association’s Distinguished Classroom Teacher award.