Three Crown Point High School teachers awarded Lilly Fellowship grant

Eric Beard, Matthew Barno and Ryan Collier are recipient of the 2024 Lilly Endowment Teacher Creativity Fellowship and will each receive up to $15,000 to support a personal project of exploration.

Beard will spend three weeks in Northern California and Oregon to study literature and research two influential authors, Jack Kerouac and Ken Kesey. This will include viewing the collection of Kesey's work at the University of Oregon, and a San Francisco museum dedicated to Kerouac's work.

The experience will also include a five-day yoga and mediation retreat.

Barno will spend two weeks traveling on U.S. Route 66 all the way to Santa Monica, California. Along the way he will stop at landmarks and points of interests related to the historic highway.

For the second leg of the trip, Barno will travel the Pacific Coastal Highway and stop at various location related to surfing and American history. Finally, he will travel up to Seattle, Washington, stopping at major national parks and landmarks. 

Collier will take a ten day trip to Wyoming to experience working on a cattle ranch. Over the 2024-25 winter break, Collier will take part in dog-sledding in Minnesota. In March of 2025, he learn to snorkel while in the Florida Keys. Finally, he will take a backpacking trip through the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore in Michigan during the summer of 2025.

Collier said the trips will help him learn how to find peace in unfamiliar environments and better connect with students who may have their own struggles.