Bill Peeper, who taught history at Iola High School for five years before returning to his native Oklahoma in 2015, was among a dozen finalists for Oklahoma Teacher of the Year.
Peeper was honored Wednesday at a ceremony hosted by the Oklahoma State Department of Education.
“It’s very humbling,” Peeper told the Register before the ceremony. “This is never anything I’d given any thought about. This is not really a profession that gives awards. It’s been a unique experience. I’m certainly blessed to be a part of it.”
Peeper, who previously was named Cushing District teacher of the year, learned last fall he was among the 12 finalists of the dozens of district teacher honorees.
Since then, he’s been to the Oklahoma Capitol for a ceremony, and was recognized at an Oklahoma City Thunder NBA game.
“It’s been neat to be a part of it,” he said.
Peeper has been a teacher for the past 27 years, the last five at Cushing High School, where he teaches history for students in 10th through 12th grades.
Peeper’s wife, Autumn, who served as the Iola High newspaper adviser while the family was in Iola, gave up teaching to work for her father’s property management company.
Daughter BreAnna is a freshman at Oklahoma State University, Peeper’s alma mater. Son Mason is a high school freshman.
PEEPER shared a story about one of his students, who raised her hand, not to ask a question, but instead to make a declaration.
“There’s a lot of history, and I don’t know much of it,” the girl said. “But this is the first time I’ve wanted to know anything about it.”
The episode perfectly encapsulated Peeper’s goal, to make his students curious learners.
“I can’t bring all my students into the world,” he said. “But I work hard every day to bring the world to my students.”
Peeper also shared words of wisdom from Mark Twain and actor Jason Sudeikis of “Ted Lasso” fame.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness,” Peeper said of Twain’s quote. “The more we’re willing to approach people who are different from us with curiosity, empathy and understanding, the more we grow as people and appreciate our own roles in making this world a better place.”
Likewise, Sudeikis’s “Lasso” encourages people “to be curious, not judgmental,” Peeper said. “It’s not until we meet people at ground level that we understand how much we have in common.”
ALAS, Wednesday’s ceremony ended with the announcement that Traci Manuel, an English teacher in Tulsa, was Oklahoma’s 2023 Teacher of the Year.
That mattered not a whit to the 11 other finalists, Peeper included.
Julie Osborne, a second-grader teacher from Pryor, Okla., noted the winner will be allowed to continue reaching young learners on a daily basis. And the other 11 will do the same.
“We’re all winners,” she concluded.
Those words reflect Peeper’s outlook.
“I just show up and try to do the best I can,” he said. “Getting students to engage with the content matter and each other is really the essence of all that I do within the walls of my classroom. It is a priority of mine every new school year to develop a considerate and compassionate classroom culture in which we can all learn, grow, be challenged and show support to each other.”
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