LifeChanger of the Year Nominee Profile

Chris Weatherford was nominated by her spouse, Bill Weatherford.

Mrs. Weatherford has been teaching for 18 years. She received her degree in 1990 in Colorado, but decided to take a different path at first. She was a waitress, loaded airplanes for United Airlines, and worked as a physical therapy assistant while in college. Then, she decided to pursue a career in elder care as an activity director, then the assistant admissions director until her son was born.

At that time, Mrs. Weatherford stayed home with her son. She started "learning days" with him until he was old enough to start pre-school, where Mrs. Weatherford decided to start working part-time. She became the facility's assistant director, and when her son started kindergarten, she decided to start her teaching career. 

While living in Oklahoma, Mrs. Weatherford became aware of the horrendous health statistics for her state, especially regarding children. It has been her mission ever since to educate her students, their families, and her colleagues about how to live a healthy, active lifestyle.

Mrs. Weatherford is not your ordinary physical education/health teacher - she is a specialist! She introduces her students to various sports and athletic skills, but her main intention is for students to experience new activities they can do throughout their lives and don't have to be a superior athlete to participate. Examples of this are: archery, tennis, bocce ball, badminton, and yoga.

She has made a positive impact on her school community by providing a variety of inclusive activities, such as having the local college teach health classes to her second and third graders, having Citizen CPR teach fifth graders how to perform hands-only CPR, walking clubs, community walks/bike rides to school, Zoo Runs, and the Cimtel Classic 5K. She is the coordinator for community service events such as the American Heart Association's Jump/Hoops for Heart. Additionally, she organizes a free community health fair each year, where attendees can obtain toothbrushes and toothpaste, blood and glucose checks, car seat checks, flu shots, and information regarding healthy lifestyles from various groups.

Mrs. Weatherford has a record of excellent performance at the professional level. She became Nationally Board Certified in 2012, attends state and national conferences, receives high praise on evaluations, and presents topics to faculty and state conference attendees. She also provides birthday parties that are physically active on the weekends. Students and their families love this because they live in a rural community, and the birthday parties allow families to stay "in town" to celebrate.

Her most recent community event was the inaugural color run, which had 150 attendees and raised proceeds to benefit the schools.

Mrs. Weatherford has shown leadership by including classroom teachers in her curriculum planning. She sends them "brain breaks" to use throughout the day, research regarding exercises to assist with ADD/ADHD students, obtaining spelling lists, math facts, state capital relays, and vocabulary words to use in her activities. She is the lead teacher for her team, chair of the Healthy and Fit School Committee, and a member of the District Wellness Committee. Because of her leadership, she was personally asked by the superintendent to be part of his Advisory Council. She was chosen as the district's Teacher of the Year in 2018 because her administrators and peers know she provides a nurturing environment. She is morally and ethically bound by contributing to the well-being and education of our youth. This award shocked her, as she wasn't expecting the recognition.

"Chris has been an inspiration to students who have gone on to become physical education teachers. She has also been a mentor teacher to several student teachers over the years," said Mr. Weatherford. "Chris walks the walk, and talks the talk, by being physically active and eating healthy herself. She also provides a boot camp for any faculty and staff twice per week. The only cost is $20 to help pay the liability insurance. For all these reasons and so many more, I believe she is a LifeChanger."