Shirley Holt-Hale, Oak Ridge

How do you climb a mountain?  One step at a time.  How do your move forward with legislative endeavors?  One step at a time and with patience.  That belief led Shirley Holt-Hale into advocacy for Tennessee's children and physical education.  

Shirley is a retired public school teacher with 38 years of teaching elementary physical education at Linden Elementary School in Oak Ridge, TN.  She holds an undergraduate degree in elementary education from Berea College and a Ph.D in early childhood education from Vanderbilt University.  Upon her retirement the gymnasium at Linden Elementary was named in her honor with a plaque that reads:  "With the joy and passion of teaching inspired by her mother."

That passion led to the networking within the state of Tennessee to introduce a legislative bill to provide instructional physical education to all children in the elementary schools of Tennessee.  Shirley's belief is that physical literacy, attained through a quality program of physical education, is the birthright of all children.  With that belief and that passion for children a network was formed to introduce the Tom Cronan Bill into the legislature.  The Tennessee Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance (TAHPERD) with Executive Director, Andrea Burton, and Advocacy Chair, Fran Hoogestratt, joined forces with American Heart and its newly appointed Government Relations Director, Denise Costanza, to work with Senators and Representatives to educate everyone involved as to the importance of this proposed action.  We have found education to be the key to increasing the network and the support for the bill.  The mountain is tall, but working together makes the climb so much easier!

Physical Literacy:  the knowledge, skills, and confidence to be physically active for a lifetime...the birthright of each child in Tennessee.