Three were inducted into the Bartlesville Public Schools Foundation’s Educator Hall of Fame Thursday morning. BPS Foundation Executive Director Blair Ellis said Thursday that the breakfast is another great way to advocate and value education and educators.

Ellis said the Educator Hall of Fame Committee has done an excellent job for the last 10 years with their inductee choices. She said she believes the inductees get better each and every year. This year's inductees were Helen Raible, Earl Sears and Barbara Tunin.

Raible became a remedial reading teacher at Washington Elementary in 1977 and then went on to teach a fourth-grade class at Oak Park in ’79. Today she tutors students at Jane Phillips twice a week. Tunin taught for eight years at Washington Elementary before the school closed. She then moved on to teach third-grade classes at Wayside Elementary for 23 years.

Then there was Sears, a founder of the Bartlesville Public Schools Foundation and current member of the Foundation. Sears said Thursday that he wants the 32 years he served as an educator at Central Middle School to be the biggest trophy on his mantle. He said public education should always be a priority because it is the foundation of this nation. Education, he said, is also the foundation of an individual because education changes lives.

Each inductee gave a $1,000 grant to the school of their choice. Those unrestricted funds sponsored by ConocoPhillips went to Wayside and Jane Phillips Elementary Schools, and Central Middle School. Ellis said the principals at each school can use that money as they see fit for their school.

A grant impact video courtesy of Michael Wray was also presented at the breakfast Thursday. Ellis said that the Bartlesville Public Schools Foundation funded up to 40 grants in the last year at an approimate cost of $50,000.