Maridee Cornell
White Station High School (WSHS) alumnus, physics teacher and volleyball coach Maridee Cornell has been teaching at WSHS for 13 years, connecting with students of all kinds.
“I enjoy interacting with the students and getting to know them,” Cornell said. “I love the interaction, just making time and being with students and getting to know them.”
As an alumnus and former volleyball, softball and basketball player at WSHS, Cornell’s school spirit runs deep. Her favorite green food is cream spinach, her ideal homecoming dance theme would be “Friday Night Lights” and, in a perfect world, it would take her around five minutes to get from the Freshman Academy to the portables. If the WSHS mascot was not a Spartan, Cornell believes it should be something representing toughness and strength.
“What would we be if we weren’t Spartans?” Cornell said. “[Our mascot should be] something that represents tenacity because our kids are so resilient. They can come back [from adversity] and [can] do anything they want.”
During her 13 years at WSHS, Cornell has led the robotics team to the world championship. Over 750 teams from all around the world were in attendance, and the event remains a fond memory for her.
“One of my favorite memories while I’ve been teaching is the first time that we won our bid to go to worlds for robotics,” Cornell said. “That was pretty exciting. We had done pretty well in both of our regional events, and I opened up the email on a Monday morning, and there was the invitation. I literally screamed in front of the kids. I was so excited.”
Cornell is a two-time winner of an award for most influential teacher, and she enjoys teaching students throughout their high school career and sharing her academic drive with her students.
“I get to teach students for three years running,” Cornell said. “I give my passion to my kids; they easily pick up on it, and they end up studying physics a lot of times or something closely related to it.”
Ellen Dunn
English 1 and English 1 Honors teacher Ellen Dunn has been a teacher for eight years, seven of which were spent at White Station High School (WSHS). As a teacher in the Freshman Academy, Dunn enjoys working with the freshmen.
“I feel like [WSHS is] a community,” Dunn said. “I’ve felt very blessed to be able to teach here, especially in the Freshman Academy. [I] wouldn’t really want to go anywhere else.”
Dunn believes if the mascot of WSHS weren’t a Spartan, it would be something off the wall and atypical — like a dragon. Dunn enjoys any kind of green ice cream and believes the ideal homecoming theme would be something related to Memphis, such as music or Beale Street. She thinks she could get from the Freshman Academy to the portables in five to seven minutes. Dunn has also taught Genre Literature in the past, giving her a fond memory with her students.
“My first time teaching Genre Literature, I had a very small class,” Dunn said. “[The class] was pretty much all students I had taught before, and they became [a] very close-knit community. That class was a lot of fun. We were able to go on a field trip … to Nashville. We rented a minivan; there were only six of them, so we could all fit in there.”
Dunn enjoys hearing the WSHS band, choir and orchestra, as well as attending volleyball games and theater performances. As an English teacher, Dunn wishes they had time to assign more books to students and feels like the length of books they assign is getting shorter and shorter. Dunn also wishes there was enough time in the curriculum to promote enjoyable reading among students.
“I really wish that the curriculum allowed us time to encourage kids to read what they wanted to read,” Dunn said. “[The curriculum does not] let reading be fun in high school. It’s something you have to do [and] it’s not something you get to enjoy.”
