James Welker was recently honored by the Missouri Association of School Administrators for his service to public education. He was one of eight former educators to receive the association's Outstanding Emritus Educator Award. This special recognition was made during the awards banquet at the MASA Spring Conference on March 24 at Lake Ozark, Missouri.

For the past several years, MASA has honored outstanding emeritus (retired) educators identified by each MASA district for their past service.

Welker's 42-year career in education began as an agricultural education teacher at Delta School District. After nearly 10 years at Delta, he became district supervisor of agricultural education with the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education for the next 10 years. Following his time at DESE, he worked as an adult education coordinator at Sikeston, Missouri, Public Schools for two years and then became assistant superintdent at Jackson School District for eight years. Following Jackson, he served as superitendnet of Cape Girardeau School District for nine years. He served as the Southeast MASA president and was nominated for both the New Superintendent and the Pearce Awards. After retiring from the supertendency, he served as the Missouri Career Patheways consultant at Southeast RPDC for two years and currently serves as director of the Southeast RPDC at Southeast Missouri State University.