Fallen Educators to be Remembered at Nationally Recognized Memorial

EMPORIA, Kan., June 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Following the passage of the bill recognizing the Memorial to Fallen Educators as a national site, Emporia State University and the National Teachers Hall of Fame will host a rededication ceremony on June 21, 2018. At the ceremony, fallen teachers and staff members from the past year will be added to the memorial. Names include those of teachers and staff members from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, and Santa Fe High School in Santa Fe, Texas, victims of recent school shootings.

The National Memorial to Fallen Educators honors teachers, administrators and staff members who lost their lives while working for our nation's schools and was created in 2013, following the tragedy at the elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, where six educators lost their lives. The rededication ceremony comes after President Donald Trump signed a bill to nationally recognize the site on ESU's campus.

"We are ecstatic about the national memorial designation and are making big plans for the rededication ceremony," said Carol Strickland, executive director of the National Teachers Hall of Fame, sponsor of the memorial.

The ceremony, which begins at 2 p.m., will consist of tributes for each of the 10 fallen educators and placing a white rose at the base of the memorial for each. In addition, the members of the Class of 2018 National Teachers Hall of Fame Inductees will place the class wreath and plant two redbud trees as their gift to the memorial site.

Dr. Anthony Salvatore, an administrator from Newtown, Connecticut, will also announce that the NTHF Museum will become the permanent home of a dream catcher, designed and created in 1999 by a Native American tribe in Minnesota to be presented to the students at Columbine High School after the tragic shooting. It has since moved to Minnesota, Connecticut and now resides in Parkland, Florida, after tragic school shootings in those states.

To learn more about the fallen educator memorial and the event including fundraising for a new tablet, names to be added to the memorial and dignitaries expected to attend check out http://bit.ly/2MgOiyl.

About the National Memorial to Fallen Educators

Dedicated in June 2014, the Memorial to Fallen Educators was created by the National Teachers Hall of Fame to honor U.S. educators and support professionals who literally "gave their all" for their profession. Located on the Emporia State University campus in Emporia, Kansas, the earliest name on the wall is Enoch Brown, who was killed in a 1764 Native American attack on a Pennsylvania school during Pontiac's War. Other reasons for inclusion include school fires, bus crashes and school violence. In the future, the memorial will be expanded to include names of those in higher education who have fallen in the line of duty. The memorial received national status in April 2018. For more information: https://nthfmemorial.org/.

About Emporia State University

Emporia State University offers over 200 academic programs in the School of Business, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, School of Library and Information Management and The Teachers College. ESU is the only public university in Kansas to have earned national recognition as a College of Distinction, an honor for universities that demonstrate innovative application of high-impact education. In addition, in the Best Colleges 2018 guidebook by U.S. News and World Report, ESU is ranked No. 2 in lowest student debt of all Midwest regional universities. U.S. News also cited ESU's School of Business as a best value for both in-state and out-of-state students and ranked the online graduate education and non-MBA online programs in the Top 100 programs in the nation.

SOURCE Emporia State University