— LISTEE'S SPOTLIGHT —

Ms. Petrola is a poet and retired 6th grade teacher who spent more than 40 years teaching writing and literature to fifth and sixth-grade students in New York’s Mount Sinai School District. Inspired by her teachers and her mother, an elementary educator, Ms. Petrola knew that education was to be her profession. She earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in elementary education at Bethany College in 1970, a Master’s degree in liberal studies at Stony Brook University in 1974, and has completed more than 100 credits of postgraduate work to date. A 2010 Professional of the Year in Education and 2013 Walt Whitman Excellence in Education Blue Ribbon winner, she launched an outdoor learning laboratory for fifth-grade students and encouraged many of her students to enter national-level poetry and fiction contests. Ms. Petrola is the author of four volumes of poetry, most recently “Fragments from the Shadows,” in 2016, and is currently working on a fifth. In addition to writing, Ms. Petrola is a member of a church handbell choir and has been active in Irish Setter dog rescue and adoption work for more than four decades, including rescuing nine dogs of her own.