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Teacher who campaigns for gay rights wins award
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A gay right’s activist and elementary school teacher from Flagstaff will receive the Arizona Education Association Human and Civil Rights Award this month at a Mesa ceremony.
Annie Crego will receive the award April 25 during the Salute to Excellence dinner sponsored by the AEA Foundation for Teaching and Learning at the Phoenix Marriott Mesa hotel ballroom.
“I started teaching 34 years ago when no child ever admitted to being gay because they would be beaten or shunned,” Crego said. “Teachers never admitted they were gay, and everything was in the closet and hidden. But this work has let me get it out in a way that lets people understand.”
Crego said her mission began in 1998 when Matthew Shepard, a 21-year-old gay student at the University of Wyoming, was beaten unconscious and tied to a fence, later dying. Crego learned that a minister from Kansas picketed the boy’s funeral with a sign that included a slur against homosexuals. At that moment, she knew she had to do something.
“I decided, as a teacher, I could no longer sit back and watch this happen to children,” Crego said. “If there was anything I could do to stop that from happening to children, I needed to do that.”
Crego began to work as an officer for the Gay Straight Alliance Caucus, through the Arizona Education Association, the state’s largest teacher’s union.
“We work in ways to help school districts and associations begin to write language that will protect both students and teachers who are gay or perceived to be gay,” Crego said.
AEA President John Wright said Crego has made it possible for schoolchildren and employees to be safe under all circumstances, regardless of sexual orientation.
“I see her as a close friend and have seen her sensitivity and compassion firsthand,” Wright said. “She has real leadership and an ability to help people act on issues of sexual orientation and gender identity.”
Crego has also worked for six years with the Sexual Orientation and Gender Identification Presidential Advisory Committee for the AEA. This committee works with students and teachers who are either gay or perceived to be gay. Additionally, she worked on the Human and Civil Rights Committee at the state level for five years.
“I’m not talking about sex,” Crego said. “For me the point is that every child has a right to be safe. And school, for many of these children, is the only place they are safe.”
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