TJC Alumnus A Sondheim Inspirational Teacher Award Winner

TYLER — Tyler Junior College has two connections to this year’s John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts/Stephen Sondheim Inspirational Teacher Awards: A winning teacher and the student who nominated him. JP Fugler, on the right, a former TJC student and current speech teacher at Van High School, is one of 13 educators nationwide, and the only winner from Texas, selected this year from an extensive pool of nominees. Fugler was nominated for the Sondheim award by his former VHS student Jacob Savage, who is now a freshman speech/communications major at TJC.

In spring of 2008, Fugler himself was a standout speech student at TJC, where he earned awards for parliamentary debate and program oral interpretation. After TJC, he finished his education at The University of Texas at Tyler. “I knew from a young age that I wanted to be a speech teacher, and Tyler Junior
College groomed me for that,” Fugler said. “(TJC speech professor) M’Liss Hindman is one of the people I credit most for shaping me as an educator.” Even after Fugler transferred to UT Tyler, Hindman created an internship so he could assist her with coaching the TJC speech team. “She taught me how to be a teacher,” he said.

The Sondheim awards were created in 2010, in honor of composer Stephen Sondheim’s 80th birthday, and they were initiated and funded through the support of Myrna and Freddie Gershon. Award recipients each receive $10,000 and are showcased, along with the people they inspired, on a website dedicated to inspirational teachers.