Godwin with former NC State basketball player Dereck Whittenburg at Thursday’s ceremony. Source: Facebook

Onslow County kindergarten teacher Lisa Brown Godwin, who was named North Carolina’s Teacher of the Year on Thursday at a ceremony in Raleigh, hails from Harnett County and began her career in education as a teaching assistant at Tramway Elementary in Sanford.

According to WRAL’s report, Godwin began as a teaching assistant in 1997 at Tramway before earning her degree and taking a kindergarten position at Deep River Elementary. She later became the assistant principal at J. Glenn Edwards Elementary before moving to a similar position in Onslow County.

The WRAL piece indicates that she returned to the classroom from her administration job after deciding she “truly missed the daily, positive interaction with my own classroom of students.”

On her Facebook page Thursday night, Godwin said that teaching is her “mission field” and that it “will expand and grow this year as I get to travel this great state.” She asked her friends to “pray that I will be a positive voice for education and a strong advocate for our children.”

North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper congratulated Godwin in a tweet: