Euless Trinity educator, A&M graduate named top secondary history teacher in Texas
For the second time, the James Madison Memorial Fellowship is going to Hurst-Euless-Bedford ISD.
Euless Trinity’s Trasa Cobern was named the 2020 recipient of the Fellowship, becoming HEB’s first since Marci Ward in 2009.
The James Madison Memorial Fellowship is awarded to one secondary history teacher in the state every year.
“We are very proud of Trasa for being recognized for all her hard work and the outstanding job that she does,” said Trinity principal Mike Harris. “This is a great honor and she is very deserving.”
It was the fourth time in six years that Cobern had applied.
“It was a total shock,” said Cobern, a U.S. History and U.S. Government teacher. “They announced on March 30 that they’d chosen their 2020 Fellows, and for eight days I stalked them on social media constantly expecting to see another teacher’s picture labeled for Texas, like I had several times before.”
The Fellowship Foundation offers $24,000 James Madison Graduate Fellowships to individuals desiring to become outstanding teachers of the American Constitution at the secondary school level.
“It allows me to pursue my Master’s degree in American history and government, which has long been a dream,” Cobern said. “It also opens some doors to academic experiences, like a month at Georgetown University studying with some of the best history minds in the country.”
Cobern, a 1997 graduate of Texas A&M, is in her eighth year of teaching full-time.
“I love history because it’s the story of humanity. It’s our story,” she said. “Almost everything that happens has happened before, in some incarnation, and those stories, which used to be told around a campfire to a listening preliterate tribe, now are written in books. Read the right books and you will know things that contextualize our current situation.”
Cobern plans to obtain her Master’s degree in American History and Government from Ashland University in Ohio.
“I believe in the power of historical thinking. History teaches us lessons, if we have the patience to learn them, and can be applied to modern issues,” she said. “No two times are exactly alike, but humans are human and nature is nature in every era.”
This story was originally published April 16, 2020 at 2:59 PM.
