By Kathryn Schiliro
Managing Editor

A joint effort, former Morgan County Middle School teacher Sharon Maddox’s love of reading will forever be memorialzed through a newly established reading fund bearing Maddox’s name.
Friends and colleagues of Maddox came together to create the Sharon Maddox Reading Fund, and 10 of them presented the fund to the county school board at their meeting Monday, Nov. 10, as well as a plaque for the school to Principal Lydia Norburg.
The fund is meant to “help maintain the excellent reading program at Morgan County Middle School, which our dear friend Sharon loved so much,” former MCMS teacher Julie Jameson told the board.
To date, about $2,000 has already been donated.
Maddox recently passed away following a long illness but left behind a legacy of “unbelievable progress that so many students made with reading,” Jameson said.
Maddox taught several grades and subjects at MCMS, but eventually took the post of reading specialist with the goal of improving standardized test scores.
"Entire grades would pass their reading tests and this quickly became a real source of pride with our students, teachers and community," Jameson said. "There is no doubt that hundreds of Morgan County students are finding more success in life because of the strategies, skills and instruction received in the reading classes at MCMS."
In addition, Maddox took it upon herself to further reading through teaching professional learning classes to teachers, attending reading conferences, teaching students who needed extra attention, and organizing reading communities within the school.

Printed in the November 22, 2012 edition