School Board honors volunteer

After 17 years of making drill team uniforms, attending dance competitions in far-off places and accomplishing sundry other non-paid tasks, Sharon Dorman was recognized for her volunteer efforts.

But Dorman, awarded the Volunteer of the Year at a Tuesday Clovis School Board, said this acknowledgement merely put a cap on what she naturally enjoys doing.

“This is just icing on the cake for me. Being with the kids is really a blessing,” Dorman said. “When you get letters back from kids who have turned into successful adults, to have a helping hand in that is just wonderful.”

Dorman is an administrative assistant at the Army/Air Force Exchange Service at Cannon Air Force Base. In her spare time, she has been a devoted volunteer for the Clovis High Wildcadettes drill team -- often single-handedly making one new costume for the entire squad, according to school officials.

Others recognized at the school board meeting were employees of the month at Yucca Junior High School, science teacher Debby Baker and school secretary Shelley Bell; and Sandia Elementary School, special education teacher Amy Marshall and day custodian Teresa Hitzges.

School board members also approved, by unanimous vote, to continue the second phase of an effort to improve the school system’s data transfer ability.

The board OK’d an expenditure of more than $300,000 to extend fiber-optic cable to Gattis and Yucca junior high schools, as well as Cameo and Parkview elementaries.

Lonnie Leslie, assistant superintendent for operations, says that about two-thirds of the cost should be absorbed by funds through New Mexico Senate Bill 9 -- a two-mill levy that Leslie said the district already has in place.

Leslie expects the improvements -- which will allow movement of Internet images and other data from building to building -- to be in place by the beginning of the 2003-04 school year.

“Ultimately, it will save the school system on phone costs,” said Leslie, who expects that the rest of the cost will be paid for through federal grant money.

“This isn’t just something for today or tomorrow, but something for the next 10 years,” Superintendent Neil Nuttall told board members before the vote. “We’re really going to be aggressive in getting this. I think it’s going to be a monumental thing for our school system and our kids.”

Fiber-optic lines to connect the entire system should be in place within the next two years, according to Leslie.