GB Olympiad coach wins state award
BY PAM BRANNON Gulf Breeze News news@gulfbreezenews.com

Charlene Mauro Fearon was recently selected as Florida's High School Science Teacher of the Year for 2007. She teaches at Navarre High and coaches Science Olympiad for Gulf Breeze schools.

Charlene Mauro Fearon did not know she had been selected as the 2007 Outstanding High School Science Teacher of the Year for Florida until she arrived in Orlando at the state convention.

"I had been encouraged to fill out all the forms and application by my district science chair for the award," Fearon said. "But I went on about my business and didn't event think about it again. Then when I walked in to register in Orlando, I was stopped and told I was getting the award. I couldn't believe it!"

She is a Navarre High Marine Science teacher. She has received several awards over her 20 years of teaching, including Teacher of the Year. But most of those awards were received under the name Charlene Mauro, since she only married this year - to Casey Fearon, a Gulf Breeze Middle School Science teacher.

"We are both science geeks, so it works out well," she laughed. "Navarre High was my first teaching job, and when I started 10 years ago I was the only Marine Science teacher here, with one class. Now we have 13 sections of Marine Science, with three teachers," she explained.

Back 10 years ago Navarre's Science department included three teachers and today they have 15 teachers in the science department.

During the past few years she has also worked in Gulf Breeze schools as coach for the Science Olympiad for Gulf Breeze Middle and Gulf Breeze High School.

"We don't have an Olympiad team in Navarre," she said. "We need a feeder team for the high school from the middle school in order to really be successful. Gulf Breeze students are very dedicated and always take top honors in the state Olympiad. It is exciting to work with them, and amazing to see middle school students so dedicated with their research and study."

She said she was amazed the first time she took a group of Gulf Breeze Middle School students to Orlando for the Olympiad.

"All the way down the students had their binders open and actually studying for the competition. Middle school students! Amazing!" she said.

She coaches the Gulf Breeze students for the Olympiad in oceanography, ecology, and forensics.

For her honor as Florida Association of Science Teachers high school teacher of the year for 2007, she received a plaque and $500.

Charlene said she decided early in her teen years she wanted to be science teacher.

"I had the opportunity to work a Sea World, and that was definitely a determining factor. When I went to college I went to Sea World as an intern, then got a job there after graduating. I loved every minute."

This month she is taking her Navarre classes on a trek to Crystal River to swim with the manatees. She has taken the trip for the past six years, working with Crystal River's educational director.

She also works as the spokesperson now for developing a marine underwater sanctuary and artificial reef for snorkeling off Navarre Beach, off the shore where the ex-state park was being built.

"It is now the property of the county, and we are working to find sponsors and monies to get that built out there. I am working with Brenda Stokes. It is a big goal, but needs to get done."