The Governor Louie B. Nunn Kentucky Teacher Hall of Fame inducted members of its 12th and 13th classes Friday afternoon at Western Kentucky University.

After a one-year COVID-19 delay, the 2020 inductees, which included Union's Carol Clouse, were formally recognized along with 2021 inductees.

Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman and Dr. Byron Darnall, associate commissioner of the Kentucky Department of Education, congratulated the inductees and welcomed them into the Kentucky Teacher Hall of Fame. 

Clouse said she was surprised by the recognition. “Education is just my life,” she said.

Clouse earned her bachelor’s (1972) and Master’s (1976) degrees from Union College and her Rank I Supervisor of Instruction Certificate from Eastern Kentucky University (1980).

Soon after graduation from Union College, she received the keys to her first classroom at Boone Elementary (1972). Clouse recalls that her knees shook as she said, “I knew teaching was my life’s calling and there was nothing else in this world I wanted to do more.”

Clouse was hired soon after Knox County first became integrated through federal busing. She became an “unofficial” ambassador for Boone Elementary to African-American families and their students as everyone was going through a considerable amount of adjustment. She recalled, “I did many home visits, alone and with other teachers I recruited, those first several years to reassure our African-American families that we would do whatever we needed to do to treat their children equally and safely.” 

As an educator, Clouse is described as nurturing, creative, dedicated, and inspirational by her former students and peers. Clouse was the first teacher to serve as building representative for the Kentucky Education Association at Boone Elementary; she wrote, individually and/or with colleagues, several grants to secure funding for the first televisions, computers, and VCRs to be installed at Boone Elementary many years before the Kentucky Education Reform Act (KERA) and the Rose Decision. She started the annual Career Day event at Boone Elementary which is still being held each year.

In 1992, Clouse closed out two decades at Boone Elementary to take a position as principal at Girdler Elementary School. Following her retirement in 2000, Clouse has remained active in the field of education. She has served as a reviewer for the Kentucky Education Professional Standards Board (EPSB), as a trainer for the St. Cloud State University Co-Teaching model for student teaching placements, and acts as a trained accreditation examiner for the National Council of Accreditation for Teacher Education (NCATE). She currently teaches as an adjunct professor at Union in the Educational Studies Unit where she is helping prepare teacher education students for careers as classroom teachers.

You can learn more abou the 2020 and 2021 inductees in the full WKU News article.