SHERIDAN — Sherri DeSoto, 54, received a surprise birthday present on March 1.
She was one of five recipients of the 2018 Gifted and Talented Educator Recognition Award during the annual Arkansans for Gifted and Talented Education (AGATE) conference held Feb. 28 through March 2 at the John Q. Hammons Convention Center in Rogers. She is the gifted and talented education facilitator for kindergarten through fifth-grade students at Sheridan Intermediate School.
“This award recognizes individuals in the field of education who have made significant contributions to the education of gifted and talented students,” said Dustin Seaton, gifted and talented specialist at the Northwest Arkansas Education Service Cooperative in Farmington and AGATE awards chairman.
DeSoto said it was “a thrill to be recognized by colleagues and my administrators.
“It was really fun to receive the award on my birthday.”
DeSoto was nominated for the award by her supervisor, Roy Wilson, AP/GT coordinator for the Sheridan School District.
“Consistently, students, parents and co-workers have lauded the uplifting work of encouragement and appreciation for academic growth that Sherri DeSoto brings to the classrooms of the Sheridan schools,” Wilson said. “Students especially enjoy new challenges she presents and become proud of their work when they win competitions, whether in the Young Entrepreneur program, Stock Market Game, chess or quiz bowl. Our school district is fortunate to experience the positive energy Mrs. DeSoto brings to her craft. More importantly, she understands that the craft of teaching is best honed when shared with enthusiasm.”
DeSoto has been a teacher with the Sheridan School District for eight years.
“I love working at the school as the gifted and talented teacher,” she said. “I have a heart for this school; I hope to stay here.”
DeSoto was born in Shreveport, Louisiana, a daughter of Jack and Sharon Price, who now live in Savannah, Texas. DeSoto has one brother, David Price, who is an attorney in Magnolia, and one sister, Cindi Price, who is a speech pathologist in the Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas, area.
“I’m from an ArkLaTex family,” she said, laughing. “My dad was a music evangelist with three kids, and we moved around a lot.”
DeSoto grew up in Garland, Texas, and is a graduate of South Garland High School. She graduated from Ouachita Baptist University in Arkadelphia in 1986 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in communications and a minor in music. She received a master’s degree in journalism with an emphasis in public relations from the University of North Texas in Denton in 1998.
She worked in public relations in the Dallas area for a few years, then moved to Northwest Arkansas.
“I am married to a preacher, Ernest DeSoto, so I have continued to move around some. I didn’t get into education until after we moved to Prairie Grove in 2000. My husband was minister of First Baptist Church in Prairie Grove for 10 years,” she said.
“The superintendent at Prairie Grove was in our church and encouraged me to go back and get accredited in music and gifted and talented education. It was a lot of work, but I did it,” DeSoto said.
“My first year of teaching was in the West Fork School District,” she said. “I did that while I was still trying to get all of my credentials. I taught kindergarten through 12th-grade music. After that, I taught at Prairie Grove, first music, then gifted and talented classes.
“I loved doing that … teaching music and gifted and talented students. … They complement each other; both are fine arts.”
She added that she received her GT credentials from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.
DeSoto met her husband while both were students at Ouachita. They reconnected in the Dallas area. They have been married 25 years and have two adult children.
Their son Robert, 22, is a graduate of Ouachita and is in his first year of law school at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. Their daughter, Lindsey, is a junior at Ouachita, where she is studying biology and thinking about attending veterinarian school.
Ernest DeSoto is now an associational missionary with the Liberty Baptist Association, which is composed of 54 Southern Baptist churches in and around Camden, Magnolia and El Dorado.
“He travels quite a bit,” Sherri DeSoto said. “His office is in El Dorado, but he goes throughout the district conducting evangelistic services and filling in at the pulpit when needed. The association sponsors Beech Springs Baptist Camp near Smackover.”
When DeSoto is not in the classroom or supporting her students in various GT activities, she enjoys singing and traveling.
She performed the first solo rendition of “The Ode to Jenkins’ Ferry,” written by Wilson, during Civil War Sesquicentennial assemblies for 3,000 Sheridan School District students in April 2014 and at the dedication of seven historical markers in November 2015 for 600 students.
“My favorite song, in popular music, is anything by The Carpenters. In sacred music, it’s anything my dad recorded. I grew up listening to his music,” DeSoto said.
“He was a vocal music major at Ouachita and about to graduate when he learned that auditions for the Metropolitan Opera were going to be held in Arkansas,” she said. “He wanted to audition but did not. He was a music prodigy.
“God’s blessed his career. He’s in his 70s and is just amazing.”
DeSoto said she was not in gifted and talented classes in school but was always in honors classes.
“You have to push students in GT classes for them to be challenged,” she said. “You have to tap into their potential. Sometimes, that’s hard.
“You cannot categorize them … cannot put them in a box. You have to unwrap that box as a gifted and talented teacher. They are all individuals. You have to provide encouragement. Sometimes they have a fear of failure. You have to help them get past that.”