CHAMPION Career center dedicates room to late educator

The longtime educator died in October of cancer.
By DENISE DICK
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
CHAMPION -- A reading room at Trumbull Career and Technical Center dedicated to the memory of Patricia Hura, the school's former director/principal, is a way for her to continue to make a difference, her son says.
TCTC staff and members of Hura's family met this morning to dedicate the reading room in the TCTC media center.
"She would have been highly honored and humbled by the experience," said Rich Hura, her son who is a teacher in the Canfield school district. "It helps her spirit to live on. It's a way for her to continue to make a difference."
Her daughter, Holly Meusborn, a second-grade teacher at Howland Springs Elementary School, agreed. "She would have been very proud and honored."
Hura, who served as TCTC principal/director from 1999 to 2001, died of cancer last October. She left TCTC in 2001, where she had started her teaching career, to become Columbiana schools superintendent.
Name of room
The plaque, naming the facility the Patty Hura Reading Room, reads, "Small things done consistently in strategic places create major impact."
Donna White, librarian, said Hura was a strong supporter of reading, children and education, and one of the last things she did as director/principal before leaving the district was to help create the room. White believed naming the area, with its cushioned chairs of a book-covered fabric, in Hura's honor was a good fit.
"Patty was a wonderful educator and friend to all of us," White said.
Hura also served three terms on the Canfield school board. She taught in the Austintown, Champion and Warren school districts during her education career, which started in 1967.
Her husband, Richard, hung the plaque in his wife's memory.
"Patty tried to make choices that were in the best interests of kids," he said, his voice cracking. "You all were part of her team and made her the person she was."