Hats off to a pair of Northern Michigan University students who were among “Teachers of Promise” who attended the Governor’s Education and Talent Summit in mid March downstate.

Jennie Baker of Munising and Amy Burley of Marquette were selected NMU’s top pre-service teachers for the prestigious designation. The Network of Michigan Educators, a statewide educational advocacy group, invited universities to select their top two students who were, in turn, honored at a banquet at the conference, which was held in Novi.

Baker is an English-secondary and social studies-secondary education major while Burley is an integrated science, chemistry and mathematics-secondary education major.

“It was enlightening to experience the ‘behind-the-scenes’ aspect of educational programming, particularly in terms of funding and the relationships between administrators and their staff,” Baker said in a news release. Added Burley, in the same release, “Any educator is capable of being a leader in the field of education, and the influence of any teacher does not need to stop in his or her own classroom. This means that teachers should constantly be working together to raise each other up, and help one another out rather than creating a competitive, closed-door atmosphere.”

The sky seems to be the limit for these outstanding students who will soon stand before their respective classrooms as full-fledged teachers. We wish them only the best.