The Indianapolis Colts teamed up with Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield in 2021 to recognize those who stood out for their excellence in providing for their students and communities at school in Indiana. They refer to these outstanding individuals as Classroom Quarterbacks.

For the third year of the program, Crothersville High School’s Linda Myers has been named the 2023-2024 Classroom Quarterback. The representatives of the program surprised Myers with a check May 9 at the school.

“It was such a shock,” said Myers. “I’m just so flattered and so humbled. I can’t even put it into words.”

For 36 years, Myers has been an agriculture teacher at Crothersville High School.

Myers said that she was chosen out of roughly 700 teachers, advisors and staff and then, that was narrowed down to 10.

To be considered for Classroom Quarterback, one person submits a nomination with an explanation of why their nominee deserves the title. For Myers, that person was student, senior and past FFA President at Crothersville, Brayden Crater, who is on his way to becoming a firefighter.

Myers said Crater was sitting on the couch scrolling through Facebook one night and once he saw a post about the nomination, he went ahead and filled it out.

“[The Colts representative] said typically it’s administration or a spouse that nominates, sometimes it’s students, but when students write in, they just write in like a sentence or two,” said Myers. “[They] said he wrote paragraphs about [me].”

Since Crater has been involved in the various activities run by the high school and FFA, Myers said that is the reason why he had so much to say and therefore shot her up to the position of finalist. Through student involvement, Myers’s hands-on learning approach was prevalent.

“That’s why you have students do the work instead of you doing the work for them,” said Myers. “I’m not teaching them anything if I’m doing all the work for them.”

Once nominated, the 10 finalists are chosen based on amount of involvement in and positive impact on the school and community and commitment to education, health and wellness initiatives and other programming.

As the Classroom Quarterback of the Year, Myers received a $2,500 donation for Crothersville High School, $100 Amazon gift card for school supplies, Colts merchandise and four tickets to the first regular season home game of the Colts 2024 season.

“Brayden knows I’m a huge football fan,” said Myers. “We don’t get much done at school on a Monday because we’re talking about Sunday football.”

Since the previous Classroom Quarterbacks of the Year were from the Indianapolis area, Myers said she assumed the program was geared toward those in that area. While she was informed about being nominated and even reaching top 10, due to the previous winners, she did not expect the surprise waiting for her when she was told to come to her classroom from the greenhouse that Thursday morning.

“I walked in and I took a deep breath, and then I couldn’t breathe after that,” said Myers.

Myers expressed her gratitude for the opportunity and said that she hopes the money goes toward supporting the agricultural program.

“That’s incredible for a little school like us; we don’t get $2,500 given to us all the time, you know,” said Myers. “That’s insurmountable.”