Marilyn Sharp of Tallahassee is the Florida Elementary Reading Teacher of the Year for 2000. Marilyn has just completed her eighteenth year at Oak Ridge Elementary School, where she serves as a Reading Resource teacher. She has served for the last two years as the School Advisory Council chairman, is a past recorder, and presently is the recorder of the Team Leaders’ Council at her school. The site of her other ten years of teaching include her home town of Fort Pierce, Homestead, Pinellas Park, and Tallahassee in Florida, as well as Cheyenne, Wyoming, and Grand Forks, North Dakota. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in Elementary Education and a Master’s Degree in Reading and Language Arts, both from FSU.

Marilyn is a past president, vice-president, and treasurer of the Leon County Reading Council. She has just completed a three-year term as District 3 Director of the Florida Reading Association. She is chairman of the FRA Studies and Research Committee and editor of The Cutting Edge. She is the co-author of Developing Cultural Literacy Through the Writing Process and numerous published articles.

Another love of Marilyn’s is her teacher’s sorority, Alpha Delta Kappa. She is currently serving her second term as president of Gamma Lambda chapter. She has served as district secretary, and as secretary and president of the Tallahassee Presidents’ Council. Six years ago she decorated the new AD K Scholarship House and is beginning her second term as State Scholarship House Chairman. She is also active in Phi Delta Kappa and is a member of Phi Kappa Phi. As a former Southern Scholarship Foundation recipient, she now serves on the Alumni Affairs committee of the SSF board. One of Marilyn’s greatest honors was her recent nomination by a former fourth grade student to Who’s Who in American Teachers.

On June 25, 2000, she celebrated the fortieth anniversary of her marriage to Larry Sharp. Their daughter, Cynthia, has captivated their hearts with beautiful one-year-old twin granddaughters, Greer and Parker. They also have a nine-year- old grandson, Brandon, who loves to read Harry Potter with Gran, and an almost four-year-old granddaughter, Cobi. Marilyn’s goal is to make lifelong readers out of everyone who comes her way. She’s produced three parent videos about reading—for parents of primary students, intermediate students, and about Reading Renaissance. For Marilyn, the love of children and the love of reading and learning go hand in hand. "I try to let my light shine by showing my love for children, as well as my own love of reading and learning. When children are kind to each other, and they begin to love reading and learning, I am one very happy teacher."