Hillsdale High School teacher Melinda Eggleston received the Excellence in Education Award in December at Michigan State’s Breslin Center. Along with a plaque presented to her by head Michigan State men’s basketball coach Tom Izzo, Eggleston won $500 for herself and $500 for Hillsdale High.
According to a press release by the Michigan Lottery, the sponsor of the award, the organization “established the Excellence in Education awards in 2014 to recognize outstanding public school educators across the state during the school year.”
Eggleston is the first teacher from the Hillsdale community school system to win the Excellence in Education award since it began. After being told she won the award in December, Eggleston shared the news with her family and they all planned to attend the ceremony.
“We all thought it would be cool to meet Tom Izzo,” she said.
A 27-year veteran of the teaching profession, Eggleston began working at Hillsdale High School in 2001. Along with teaching business education and computer science, Eggleston advises the school newspaper and yearbook, and is responsible for the school’s website and social media.
She also serves as a co-advisor to Hillsdale High’s Business Professionals of America club along with business education teacher Jennifer Duff. Eggleston chose to put Hillsdale High School’s $500 from her award toward the BPA to offset the cost of competing, which can be as expensive as $10,000 just to attend the state competition.
“The BPA is the biggest club in the school. We’re bigger than the football team. We have 60 kids in our club,” Eggleston said.
After starting the club with Duff in 2008, the two teachers have worked together to grow the BPA club since it first began with only five students. Now in its ninth year, the BPA club boasts success from multiple regional and state championships, to even winning one event at nationals.
“We’ve kind of had crazy success as well as huge growth in our chapter,” Duff said.
Eggleston and Duff are still expanding the BPA. Last year, they began training six seventh-grade students for competitions. This year, Hillsdale High’s BPA club is sending 12 middle school students to compete at nationals.
Outside of running the BPA club, Eggleston helps students develop professional skill sets by helping them get internships and job experience with local businesses. She also works with other school districts looking to begin BPA chapters of their own, often presenting student-run coffee shops in middle and high schools as examples profitable fundraisers.
Eggleston’s Excellence in Education award comes three years after she won the Hillsdale County Teacher of the Year.
“She’s just always willing to help students or faculty or administrators or other school districts even,” Duff said. “She just really is all about collaborating and providing the most success for her students.”