Five Project LEAD fellows have been selected for the Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi, the nation’s oldest, largest, and most selective all-discipline honor society. Membership is by invitation only to the top 10 percent of seniors and graduate students and 7.5 percent of juniors. Faculty, professional staff, and alumni who have achieved scholarly distinction also qualify.
The Project LEAD students who are receiving this honor are all from a group that received full scholarships for the 45-credit Project LEAD program. They will graduate in August with master’s degrees and leadership certificates:

1. Jeannie Wallace has been an English teacher at Dixie M. Hollins High School in St. Petersburg since 1986. She helped create and lead a ninth grade small learning community called “Cornerstone,” and has advised the school newspaper for 11 years.
2. Wendy Lopez is a third grade teacher at Caldwell Elementary in Auburndale, Florida who has taught third through fifth grades since 1996. She has been selected three times for Who’s Who Among America’s Teachers and was a part of a team that created a school-wide positive behavior management system.
3. Raylee Milner is the reading coach at Belcher Elementary School in Pinellas County, Florida. She was instrumental in starting single gender classrooms in kindergarten, where she taught an all boys class. Her research in this area has proven instrumental to the success of this school-wide program, which is offered as an alternative educational setting. She has been teaching at the elementary level since 2003.
4. Denise Hudson teaches English and serves as the literacy liaison, helping to evaluate web sites for the online library, at the Florida Virtual School. Prior to joining the Florida Virtual School faculty, she taught English II & III, Read 180, and Intensive Reading. Denise also worked for four years for the State of Florida Guardian ad Litem program, advocating in the court system for the best interests of children who are allegedly abused, abandoned or neglected.
5. Jodi Hooks has been a special education teacher at Sunset Hills Elementary School in Tarpon Springs, Florida since 1995 and uses a full inclusion model with her K-3 students. Jodi has been the school’s intervention coordinator for the past eleven years and is involved with all of her grade level learning communities. Jodi serves as the communications chairman of the Tarpon Springs High School PTSA.

As Phi Kappa Phi members, these five students will gain lifelong membership to a global network of academics and professionals. Since its founding in 1897, the society has initiated more than one million members, including former President Jimmy Carter, writer John Grisham, NASA astronaut Wendy Lawrence, and Netscape founder James Barksdale.