Jacksonville Teachers Receive Prior Awards

Contact Sharon Ashton
Department of Media Relations and Events
(904) 620-2115


JACKSONVILLE -- Four Jacksonville career teachers will each receive $12,000 in recognition of their dedication to area students and the teaching profession.

Clifford M. Buggs Sr. of Ribault High School; Lisa Crosby of Brookview Elementary; Denise Rambach of First Coast High School; and Michael C. Tetlow of St. Paul’s Catholic - Beaches will receive Gladys Prior Awards for Career Teaching Excellence.

This is the seventh year the awards have been presented, thanks to the generosity of Jacksonville native Gilchrist Berg, founder and president of Water Street Capital, an investment firm based in Jacksonville. Berg established the awards, which are administered by the University of North Florida, to honor Gladys Prior, one of his teachers at Ortega Elementary School. Berg said Prior saw his potential and encouraged him to succeed.

Clifford M. Buggs Sr.

Buggs has taught for 42 years, spending 32 of those years as band director at Ribault High School. Buggs says he enjoys using music to try to guide and motivate his students. During his time at Ribault, Buggs has seen the band program grow from about 35 students to as many as 200. The band program has consistently received superior and excellent ratings in district and state competitions. Buggs includes Kernaa D. McFarlin, Buggs’ band director at New Stanton High School, among his role models.

“My philosophy is that all students can learn in spite of themselves,” Buggs said. “We must continue to motivate and set goals for them and trust that they will rise to the level of expectancy.”

Lisa Crosby

Crosby has worked as a speech-language pathologist with Duval County schools twice, from 1978 to 1982 and again since 1989. Working at Brookview Elementary School, Crosby shares in the discoveries and successes of her students and in their parents’ joy as the children learn to improve their communication skills. Prior to her work at Brookview, Crosby was an adjunct instructor at Jacksonville University from 1981 to 1997 and was in private practice.

Among Crosby’s awards are the Susan H. Fuller Award for Outstanding Speech-Language Pathologist in 1997; Brookview Teacher of the Year in 1996; and the Duval County Exceptional Student Educator Award in 1992.

“As a teacher, I can never underestimate the powerful influence I have in making a child’s first experience in school a positive one,” she said. “It is my responsibility to make my classroom a place of joy, where each child feels valued and experiences success.”

Denise A. Rambach

Rambach has taught high school English for 25 years, first at Baldwin Middle/Senior High, then at Robert E. Lee High and First Coast High. Rambach teaches because she wants to make a positive difference in the lives of her students and says that the day she stops enjoying teaching is the day she will retire. She wants to “top” the teaching record of her former English teacher Hazel Haley, who has taught in Lakeland for more than 60 years.

Rambach was the Duval County Region I Teacher of the Year in 2003 and the regional winner of the Chevy Malibu Excellence in Teaching, Time magazine, in 2000.

“My philosophy is simple,” she said, “all students can learn, but it is up to me to find out how they learn and adjust my curriculum to meet their needs.”

Michael C. Tetlow

After attending seminary in Indiana for four years, Tetlow took a year’s leave of absence to think about his future. He decided that he enjoyed teaching and felt that he could reach just as many people as a teacher as he could in the priesthood. Now, he has 18 years of teaching experiencing, having taught social studies at St. Paul’s Catholic School - Riverside and St. Paul’s Catholic - Beaches.

Tetlow would like to incorporate more technology and hands-on learning tools for social studies into the classroom.

“I am a firm believer that children, given direction, can rise to the occasion and succeed in areas that they didn’t think possible,” Tetlow said. “I also think it is very important to make learning fun, and to offer many incentives.”

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