Julie Bowman, a Chattanooga Times Free Press Excellence in Education Award winner, talks with students at North Hamilton County Elementary School in Bakewell.
ABOUT THE WINNER* Julie Bowman* Age: 50* Education: Bachelor of science in elementary education and a master’s in school administration* Experience: 17 years at North Hamilton County Elementary, 29 years in education* Personal: Married to Robert Bowman. They have two children, Sara Grace, 15, and Jack, 11.QUOTES ABOUT THE FINALIST: “She always has the children at the forefront; she’s just a jewel to have on your staff.” – Penny Leffew, principal at North Hamilton County Elementary”She gives 100 percent to everything she does. She’s one of the strong backbones of our school.” – Linda Mulkey, librarian at North Hamilton County Elementary”The most important and character-building quality she has is she treats students as if they were her own children. She makes them feel at home.” – David Hampton, parentFUN FACTS* She’s a big Bruce Springsteen fan.* She has taken in virtually any animal imaginable, including a rabbit, a chinchilla, two Canada geese and a squirrel brought to school by her students.
Julie Bowman was predestined to become a teacher, she says.
Her maternal grandparents were both teachers, her aunts were teachers, even her mother was a school teacher.
When Bowman was 3 or 4 years old she would put on her mother’s high heels and sit Teddy – or T.B. as she called her teddy bear – Raggedy Ann, Clarence the cross-eyed lion and all the others on the couch and pretend that she was the teacher and all her stuffed animals were her attentive students.
“I was always going to be a teacher,” said the now 50-year-old mother of two and one of the finalists for the Times Free Press Excellence in Education awards. She has been teaching for almost 30 years.