Decorah teacher named Iowa Art Educator of the Year

The Art Educators of Iowa has named Decorah High School art teacher Elizabeth Lorentzen its 2010 Outstanding High School Art Educator.  She will be receiving the award on Saturday, October 2nd, at the Art Educators of Iowa's Fall Conference in Sioux City.

Lorentzen has been teaching art for 39 years. In addition to teaching high school art, she has taught art education classes at Luther College and drawing classes through Decorah/Northeast Iowa Community College's Continuing Education Program. 

She is passionate about art.  She is a past board member of the Decorah Regional Arts Council.  She is still the head of the Barn Quilts Committee, which is an education project of DRAC.  She is a very active member of the Winneshiek County Historic Preservation Commission. She, Carl Homstad and Wanda Gardner rewrote the Broadway-Phelps Park Historical District brochure for the National Register of Historical Places. She leads tours of Decorah's Broadway Historic District and historic downtown architecture for students, adults, and tourists.  She and Gardner set up and maintain continuing displays of Decorah's historic architecture and history in two downtown Decorah kiosks.  She contributed to one book and helped edit another book about Decorah's architecture.

Lortenzen is also passionate about her students.  She develops deep relationships with her students by taking interest in their individual successes and challenges.  She has been know to use her lunch break as a time to help students sort out their difficulties.  She has taken her passion for architecture and used it to benefit her students in a very creative way.  She works with the students to construct their own drawings of local historic architecture, then publishes the calendars to raise money for large equipment, art supplies, and field trips for the high school art students.

Lorentzen has received the Luther College Partners grant 8 times, was the 2008 Decorah Wal-Mart Teacher of the Year and was the winner of two McElroy grants.  Two of her students have won the 4th Congressional District/national art competition and had their work hung in the Capital building for a year.