New Honor For SVEE-Supported Staffer

Lynne Stover

Lynne Stover rings the bell for the opening of the GEM Fair’s marketplace.

Lynne Stover, associate director of JMU’s Center for Economic Education, has been selected by the National Association of Economic Educators (NAEE) to receive the Bessie B. Moore Service Award, the organization’s highest honor for economic education field work. Lynne will accept the award on October 5 at a national recognition luncheon in New York.

The Center for Economic Education is an outreach center of the JMU College of Business (CoB), promoting economic literacy in the Shenandoah Valley through teacher training and consultation. An educator with more than four decades of experience, Stover conducts teacher workshops and develops curriculum and activities to support the center’s mission. A frequent contributor to EconEdLink, she has published numerous articles and is a frequent presenter at regional, state and national educational conferences.

Stover, who joined JMU in 2005, helped create and implement the GEM Fair, an area-wide entrepreneurship fair for mini-economy classrooms. She also helped launch the statewide “Reading Makes Cent$” initiative, sponsored by the Virginia 529 College Savings Program, to promote economics and personal finance literacy among elementary school-aged children.

She has been an elementary school teacher, a gifted education specialist and a middle school librarian. She was honored in 2013 with the Friend of the Virginia Association of School Librarians (VAASL) Award. In 2006, she received NAEE’s Rookie of the Year Award.

In nominating Stover for the award, JMU economics professor William Wood praised her dedication to and passion for the field of economics education.

“Lynne is a creative educator, always on the lookout for new ways to teach students and other economic educators,” Wood wrote in a nomination letter. “She understands the power of face-to-face workshops and has excelled in that format … Because of her superb presentation skills, her hard work, and her genuine heart for other economic educators, her sessions have drawn large attendance and high ratings.”