Remarks Upon Presenting the National Teacher of the Year Award

Members of the Congress, ladies and gentlemen:

One of the most welcome duties of a President is to present the National Teacher of the Year award. I find this duty particularly pleasant for several reasons. First, I believe strongly, as I have all my adult life, that no profession means more to the future of our country than the teaching profession, and it is going to mean more after this week when we pass our education bill. Secondly, there is some likelihood that I might become a candidate for this honor myself someday.

The award this year goes to Mr. Richard Klinck of Wheat Ridge, Colorado. Under circumstances similar to my own experiences long ago, Mr. Klinck has exhibited the finest qualifies to be found in America. He has given more than he has been asked to give and our generation is richer for it. In this selfless service he represents all of the 2 million Americans who give their time, their energies, and their devotion so that the young people of America may have the best education possible. We also are going to improve that this week. So we honor Mr. Richard Klinck today. We honor also all of his fellow teachers throughout America, and we express our appreciation to him and to all of them for their stewardship of our most precious national resource-our youth.

This year we have placed education where it belongs, as the number one priority at the top of our national agenda. In the very near future we hope to see enacted into law by far the most comprehensive legislation for the support of our schools ever to be considered by Congress or the Nation. This measure was reported by the Senate committee, I understand, unanimously only yesterday. They will start consideration of it in the Senate today.

But all we do to provide tools of education would matter very little if it were not for the American men and women who use these tools to aid our children. Few Americans face such continuing challenge and respond so well as do the teachers of America. Upon their shoulders we have placed a heavy responsibility. The education that they impart to our young people is the basis of our prosperity, it is the basis of our security, and really is the basis of freedom itself.

A great historian has said a teacher affects eternity.

Mr. Klinck, we are extremely proud to welcome you to the White House this morning. We are very proud of your great delegation made up of both parties in the Congress from the great State of Colorado. I know they are especially proud of you, and they say so by their presence here this morning.

What you are doing in the great State of Colorado is a source of inspiration to us all. You have shown, I think, that a true teacher does not begrudge his time or even limit his efforts. He commits his entire life to the development of other minds and other lives.

Last year the President presented the Teacher of the Year award, and I said at that time that I would like every "Teacher of the Year" to serve as a full and active member of the Presidential Scholars Commission for the coming year. So, Mr. Klinck, I am today appointing you to serve on that Commission. And I hope, as you come here to perform your duties, that you will be reminded--and we will all be happy to see you--to bring your wife and daughter along with you.

I hope you will devote your energies to the students of all America as tirelessly as you have to your own students in Colorado, and from your example America will not only profit but freedom will profit throughout the world.

I especially want to thank the leaders in this field and the organization of Look magazine, and it gives me particular pride to be able to take a small part in this ceremony this morning.