Senior Will McCrite, teacher Chrissy Roe named 2020 Finley Award winners at Spain Park
Will McCrite, a senior at Spain Park High School, and Chrissy Roe, a Spanish teacher at the school, today were named winners of the 2020 Finley Award for outstanding character.
McCrite was chosen from among 389 seniors at Spain Park, 32 of whom were nominated for the Finley Award this year, and Roe was selected from among about 1,880 employees throughout the entire Hoover school system.
Last week, Sophie Griffies was named the 2020 Finley Award winner among 683 seniors at Hoover High.
WILL MCCRITE
Teachers and others who nominated McCrite for the Finley Award described him as a quiet leader with humility, a servant’s heart and an ability to build community and make other people feel welcome and comfortable.
“He has the physical stature of someone who you would assume might assert dominance, but that is not his character,” teacher Danelle Cash wrote about McCrite. “After just a few minutes around him, guards are let down.”
After a racist video involving Spain Park and Hoover students was circulated widely in the spring of 2019, McCrite agreed to serve on a newly created Diversity Council at Spain Park.
McCrite, who is originally from Puerto Rico, has experienced racism firsthand but has acknowledged that other people have experienced it much worse than he has, his nominators wrote.
“When he listened to others or spoke about what others experience, he did so in such a polite and respectful way, even if it was from a person of a different gender, race, religion, sexual orientation or economic situation,” Cash wrote.
Jeff Huerkamp, a youth leader at Riverchase United Methodist Church, said McCrite is a wonderful mentor to the younger students in the youth group at the church.
“Will has this gift to make the younger kids feel welcomed and important,” Huerkamp wrote in a nomination letter. “He has unique ability to make everyone feel like they belong. It is a small gesture which has a big impact on the lives of the students in our program.”
Michael Zelwak, an English teacher and track and field coach, said McCrite brings positivity and joy to everything he does and has demonstrated an ability to commit to something and follow through.
McCrite, though not a member of the cross-country team, volunteered to be the team’s manager and created invaluable charts to document each workout for the team.
“Will’s selfless devotion to a team and sport he doesn’t even participate in shows a lot about his character,” Zelwak wrote in a recommendation letter.
As a jumper on the track and field team, McCrite battled injury, surgery and other obstacles but never lost hope and remained committed to doing his best, Zelwak said. “I admire him for his effort and how he has persevered.”
Spain Park teacher Melisa Guthrie said McCrite is kind, forgiving, wise and wickedly funny.
After his name was announced as the winner today, McCrite thanked the teachers who have impacted him, the people who have been friends to him and others who have shaped his life.
“I’m just really thankful for everyone around me because I feel like I’m a product of the people around me and the lessons they have taught me,” he said. “I appreciate that I’m the one that gets to take credit for their combined good deeds.”
McCrite plans to attend Auburn University and major in software engineering.
CHRISSY ROE
Roe, who is in her 18th year teaching at Spain Park, is not only an innovative teacher; she is a servant leader and excellent role model for students, her nominators said.
When it looked like the school might not be able to keep its Advanced Placement program for Spanish going due to low numbers of students, Roe volunteered to teach an extra course, giving students who had been working toward getting an AP credit the opportunity to do so, fellow teacher Rebecca Suarez wrote in a nomination letter.
Roe is the sponsor for the First Priority Christian club at Spain Park and has led the students through numerous service projects, such as raising money to supply lunches and school supplies for children in Nicaragua and water filters for families in the Dominican Republic.
Under her leadership, the First Priority club members write notes of encouragement to teachers at the school. “Through this club, Chrissy is helping to foster a mutual respect and appreciation between teachers and students,” Suarez wrote.
Shanya Blocker, a Samford University student who graduated from Spain Park in 2018, said that while the students are the ones who write notes of encouragement and do gestures of kindness, Roe is the guiding hand behind it all.
“She challenges us students to be on the front line and gives all of the credit to the students; she never boasts or brags or takes any credit for herself,” Blocker wrote in a nomination letter. “She assumes the responsibility to push others to make a difference while building them up to be world changers. She encourages us that we are the ones who will make the greatest impact on our peers and in the world.”
Blocker said Roe pushes her students to work hard and do their best and is willing to do whatever it takes for them to succeed. “She always speaks with gentle and loving words,” Blocker wrote. “She is a great leader for people of all ages.”
Ansley Godwin, a 2008 graduate of Spain Park who is now a Spanish teacher at Carroll High School in Ozark, said she has always been able to count on Roe. When Godwin moved to the United States in 2004, she spoke no English, and Roe helped her register at Spain Park.
“Since day one, she was always there to help me out when I needed,” said Godwin, who herself won the student Finley Award in 2008. “She would go above and beyond with me, even when she had a thousand things to do.”
Roe continues to help her as she seeks her master’s degree, serving as her collaborative teacher and driving three hours to do observations and critiques and help her become a better teacher, she said.
“I want to be like her and help my students to have a positive experience learning the Spanish language as she helped me with my English,” Godwin wrote.
Roe said the Finley Award is probably the highest honor that Hoover City Schools gives, which makes it all the more special to her. “It’s a challenge working for Hoover, but it is a blessing as well.”