SCMEA seeks through its various awards, to honor, recognize, thank and encourage its award recipients and the general membership of the Association. This year’s class of recipients is no exception. To see these winners receive their award be sure to attend the General Session on Friday Feb. 6 at 9:30 am!
Young Music Educator Award
Mr. Stephan Botchie, Band Director, Westview Middle and Emerald High Schools
Stephan Botchie is a native of southeastern Delaware and currently resides in Greenwood, SC. Stephan is a graduate of Anderson University in Anderson, SC. He is director of bands at Emerald High School and Westview Middle School, located in Greenwood, where he is in his 7th year of teaching. Botchie teaches grades 6-12 and encompasses marching band, concert band, jazz band, woodwind ensemble and brass band. He also enjoys working with the special needs classes at Emerald. In his spare time, Botchie does a lot of work with the Greenwood Community Theatre as an actor, performer and music director. He enjoys leading worship with the praise band at his church and performing on the trombone whenever there is a need. Stephan is married to his wife Shelley and they have two children: Eli and Evelyn.
Friend of Music Education
Mr. Van Broad is the Economic Director at the Younts Center for Performing Arts in the city of Fountain Inn.
Having served as a minister of music for 24 years in South Carolina, in 2007, Van turned his attention to the revitalization work the City of Fountain Inn had begun in 2006. As a graduate of the College of Charleston, the experience gained there and through ministry enabled him to make practical application in the opening of the Cities first performing arts center and leading the town to a resurgence in its downtown development.
Van serves the community by participating in several boards, the Laurens County Chamber, Yeah That Greenville, SC Arts Alliance and Greenville Forward. He was past President of the Fountain Inn Music Club, is an active member and also participates in musicals at the center and in his church music program.
Honor Administrator Award
Mr. Craig Washington, Principal of Southside Middle School
Mr. Washington has spent his entire life being a student musician, a music teacher and now leader of a school that has arts at its center. Mr. Washington is a product of Florence School District Five in Johnsonville, SC where he first discovered his love of music. He is a graduate of Charleston Southern University. He began his career as a band director in McClellanville, SC. He began his administrative career at Sumter High School as an assistant principal. He received a Master’s Degree in Secondary School Administration from the Citadel and advanced education leadership training from the University of South Carolina. Southside has achieved the status of being named a Department of Education “Silver Award School” and has been named A Red Carpet School under Mr. Washington’s leadership. Southside, an Arts and Basic Curriculum School and Distinguished Arts School, is a shining beacon for the arts in Florence.
Mr. Washington has served for the past 9 years as the Southside principal. He is also the winner of the 2012 SC Art Education Associations’ Outstanding Principal Award and was recently named the Technical Overall Skills winner of the 2014 Florence Dancing with the Stars, a fund-raising annual event for the Florence School Foundation.
He is married to Barbarette (also a musician) and has two daughters who are carrying on the band tradition playing trombone and tuba. He serves as a band booster parent for the Southside Middle and South Florence High School Bands and supports his church instrumental music program as the director and trombonist.
Memorial Scholarship
Ms. Bethany Williams, vocalist, Seneca High School
Miss Bethany Williams, soprano, is the eighteen-year-old daughter of Ms. Andrea Michelle Williams and the late Dr. Eldred Leslie Williams.
Bethany is a senior at Seneca High School where she is a member of the Honors Chorale and the Seneca High School Madrigal Ensemble. She is also enrolled in Advanced Placement Music Theory.
This past summer, Bethany attended an intensive, two-week Vocal Solo Artist program at Westminster Choir College where she studied opera. In the fall of 2014, Bethany was selected to be a Young Artist with the Greenville Chorale. Bethany has also participated in the All-State SATB Choirs for three years.
In addition to chorus, Bethany holds leadership positions in Seneca High School’s Student Government Association, National Honors Society, and Future Educators Association. She is also a very active visual art student and has attended the Governor’s School for the Arts and Humanities Summer Program for Visual Arts. Bethany plans to pursue further studies in vocal performance and visual arts in college.
At the Conference General Session Ms. Williams will be performing Après un rêve by Gabriel Fauré
Hall of Fame Award
Dr. Sharon Doyle, SCMEA Conference Chairperson and Orchestra Division Executive Director
Dr. Doyle currently teaches general music and arts infusion at Woodland Heights Elementary School in Spartanburg District 6, an Arts in Basic Curriculum (ABC) site. She has also taught orchestra at all levels and served as building administrators in Spartanburg District #6 & #7 with over thirty years in the public school system. She has also taught as an adjunct professor at USC Upstate and Converse College. Dr. Doyle is active in her school, community, and throughout the state. She is a regional outreach consultant (ROC) for ABC, has served as a grant manager and reader for the State Dept. Arts Curricular grants, held multiple offices in SCMEA in the orchestra division (All-State chair, president, president-elect, and treasurer) and on the executive board (administrative representative and conference chair). She is currently the treasurer of the orchestra division and the conference chair on the executive board. Dr. Doyle has earned several awards including the Deborah Hoffman Mentoring Award from SCMEA, Teacher of the Year for Woodland Heights Elementary, as well as provided her services as a clinician at conferences and adjudicator for instrumental festivals. She also serves on the Spartanburg Music Foundation board which manages the Spartanburg Philharmonic Orchestra. Dr. Doyle is an advocate for arts education at all levels of instruction and has taught the South Carolina Academy for Leadership in the Arts (SCALSA) since its inception serving nearly 200 young teachers in the arts from throughout the state. She is amused to read current innovative staff development strategies that are now proclaiming the ‘teacher teaching teacher’ model as one of the most effective ways to provide support for new teachers. “We’ve been doing this since 2002 and are proud to say that better than 90% of our teachers who have participated in SCALSA remain in the profession providing quality instruction to the students they reach. “ She also completed her doctoral dissertation from North Central University in Prescott, Arizona on the correlation of quality fine arts to test scores in South Carolina using every elementary 3-5 grade school score as her data set. The research confirmed significantly that quality fine arts programs correlate to higher reading scores, correlated to an improved negative effect of poverty on scores, and presented a marginal effect on improved math scores. This is another example of her advocacy to present the facts for the positive effects of fine arts and music on the children of our state.