Florence teacher’s essay nets school $61,000 worth of equipment

Mary Gutman, an English and writing teacher at Wilson High School, has helped the school win more than $61,000 in technology and other items through Samsung’s “Hope for Education” essay contest.

“I love entering essay contests,” Gutman said. “In these days of budget cuts, $61,000 worth of technology was just too good to past up.”

Wilson was notified in December that Wilson was one of 31 schools in the nation to win the contest.

Gutman said she wrote a personal essay answering the question, “How has technology educated you on helping the environment and how or why has it changed your behavior to be more environmentally friendly?”

Gutman said she was excited to know the school had won the equipment because it was essential to the education provided at the school.

“It would have been impossible to procure technology to replace what was going belly up because of the (unprecedented) budget cuts,” she said. “Since Dr. (Gerard) Edwards’ arrival (as principal, technology has been a priority at Wilson High School and his encouragement to enter this contest was responsible for my success, as well as my own words.”

As a first-prize winner of $61,000, the school was able to select from a list of items that would benefit the entire school, including the school’s media center and yearbook class, Edwards said.

“Considering the budget cuts, we feel like we’ve hit the jackpot,” he said. “We don’t have that kind of money to use now, (so) being able to purchase the things that we have for our students is really exciting.”

The school has selected several Samsung products, including liquid crystal display (LCD) televisions, digital cameras and DVD players. The school also received a DirecTV package and $30,000 in Microsoft software, as well as $1,000 in cash, according to a press release issued by Samsung.

DirecTV provided the cash grants and the SCHOOL CHOICE educational television programming package.

For submitting the winning essay, Gutman was awarded the Samsung Ultra Mobile PC, a handheld multi-media personal computer, which features a 7-inch LCD screen and built-in keyboard.

The school’s administration donated a television to the district office to display in lobby area for visitors to view daily announcements.

Edwards said he was thankful to Gutman for nominating the school.

“Being able to offer these resources to our students is a great opportunity,” he said. “We’re blessed to have excellent teachers at Wilson and (Ms. Mary) Gutman is just one example.”