This week is none other than teacher appreciation week, and though we are unable to celebrate it with our teachers this year, NBC15 is not letting teachers in southern Wisconsin go unrecognized. 

This year NBC15 celebrates its 25th year of honoring our very own teachers through the Crystal Apple Awards.

Nominations are created and submitted to NBC15. 

NBC15 received what they call “a record number of over 650 nominations.” 

Of the 650+ nominations, five Crystal Apple Award recipients and twenty honorable mentions are being named throughout this week.

Among those twenty honorable mentions is Craig High School’s very own Mr. Holmquist, who was recognized this past Tuesday for “his positive personality and his efforts to make sure that students enjoy learning.”

When Mr. Holmquist heard that he was going to be recognized as an honorable mention he said, “I have heard that I was named as a Crystal Apple Award honorable mention! Wow! I am so honored! Thank you!”

Mr. Holmquist was overjoyed after seeing his honorable mention on TV, saying, “That was awesome! Wow! Thank you so much! I can’t stop smiling.”

For Mr. Holmquist’s nomination, over half of Mr. Holmquist’s 165 students and about 10 of his co-workers helped put together a book consisting of 40 individually written nominations explaining why Mr. Holmquist is such a great teacher.

This nomination process was spearheaded by Carly Buckman, with support from Craig principal Alison Bjoin, assistant principal Monte Phillips, Ms. Spaeth, Ms. Obrien-Schooff, Ms. Lottes, Mrs. Meier and the Craig Criterion staff. 

Buckman used her reporting skills to gather information from students in hopes of having a stunning and unforgettable application for the Crystal Apple Awards selection committee. 

She crafted a book from the responses and sent it in as the nomination. Although unable to create a newspaper with all of the quotes of praise, the dedication of Mr. Holmquist still showed through.

Throughout this entire process, Holmquist remained unaware of this “behind the scenes work,” even after showing Buckman how to use InDesign and a couple of his students questioning him about having to fill out a survey. Holmquist even tagged along on an interview, where Buckman had to quickly improvise with another question to keep it a surprise. 

Each of the newspaper students wrote positive information about Mr. Holmquist, with a few of them even having page long responses. 

Buckman was inspired to create this nomination after seeing Holmquist’s constant generosity and love of teaching. He would help her with math homework, even making copies of her worksheets so that he could learn the problems for himself. 

Holmquist has been a valuable asset to Craig High School and has finally received some well-deserved recognition for his constant school involvement and commitment to his students.