State Credit Union honors Endicott teacher Sue Lynch

Susan Lynch, eighth grade teacher at Endicott Middle School, was named Teacher of the Week Tuesday by the Washington State Employees Credit Union.

Lynch is in her 21st year of teaching English, social studies, home economics and leadership classes to Endicott students.

“I was in quite a state of disbelief. I thought it was a scam,” Lynch said Tuesday while helping set up the school’s dinner theater production of Annie.

Suspecting an eighth grade prank, Lynch answered the call: “This is Sue Lynch. What do you want.”

“I wasn’t very nice about it,” she said. “I’m used to teaching eighth graders who like to tell stories.”

Lynch was nominated by her fellow teacher Becky Gonzales. Gonzales said it was Lynch’s efforts to involve students in the community that inspired her to put Lynch up for the award.

“She has gone above and beyond the call of duty teaching them how to take pride in their community and become involved in ways that now have benefited the community through their service learning project work,” Gonzales wrote in her nomination letter.

Gonzales pointed to a number of projects that she said showed that effort.

Students made signs for the streets of Endicott. They landscaped the school and tend to the plants in the Multiflora Gardens on the south side of town. Each year, the students make gifts for elderly community members, taking them by for Christmas and singing carols at assisted living centers in St. John and Colfax. For more than a decade, Lynch’s students have led a school recycling program.

Along with the Teacher of the Week title, Lynch received a $500 grant for classroom supplies and tickets to an upcoming Seattle Mariners game, where she plans to hit the right field bleachers to cheer on her favorite imported outfielder.

“I love my Ichiro,” she said.