Jane Pauley Show Books Mt. Pleasant Native

From The East Texas Journal,

December, 2004 Edition

NEW YORK – The new “hot rod” art teacher from Marble Falls, Texas made her television debut Dec. 15, 2004 on NBC’s Jane Pauley Show.

“One of the best things I’ve ever done was hiring Grail Currey,” said Colt Elementary School Principal Bill Reeves, the man hanging the “Hot Rod” moniker on the Mt. Pleasant native. “The irony is, when she tried getting on a year ago, we didn’t have a slot for her. We’re lucky she kept trying.”

Charged with developing an elementary art curriculum as an “integral” part of his school’s instruction, Miss Currey answered the bell, scoring direct hits with teachers in core subjects, linking her classroom assignments to math and science.

Her class work caught the eye of Corporate Crayola when she applied for an in-kind grant of art supplies. Her school is one of two picked coast to coast.

“I’ve figured this out about Marble Falls schools,” Miss Currey said. “It’s get moving, or get out of the way. All I was trying to do was my part.”

She opened a series of third-grade art classes requiring her charges to cite the day’s science study of arachnids, pulling the topic of bugs back to art with a spider-drawing assignment.

The relationship of the sizes of spider body parts opened the door to art as geometry.

“Art’s a way to soften the edges of hard concepts,” she said, “a way to make new ideas user friendly.”

The principal knew he hadn’t hired a “normal” teacher the day he arrived to find the exterior of her classroom building covered in construction paper plastered with an irregular geometric design.

“Tennis balls,” Miss Currey explained. “Some days, you wake up and you realize you’ve never dipped tennis balls in paint and thrown them at the side of a building.”

Not a student objected, and further, no parents complained when students came home covered with paint.

The “Splat-tacular” mosaic became the backdrop for a scholastic UIL meet with the theme “Out of This World.”

The school’s new art teacher’s unconventional style is tempered with a passion for the work, the principal said.

“No matter how good your ideas are, the teachers with that magic touch are the ones who connect with people,” Mr. Reeves said. “She’s got the ideas and the magic.”

That, and half a school year under her belt.

“I can’t wait,” said the principal, “to see what she does next semester.”

Locally, friends will appreciate the now veteran talk-show guest’s response when we called.

“I’m really trying to keep this from going to my head,” she quipped. “Just a moment, and I’ll connect you with my agent.”