Koko Thornton taught at Enloe High School in Raleigh for 24 years before retiring at the end of the 2023-2024 school year. She now serves as a Marketing and Outreach Coordinating Teacher with the school district.
"Teachers are not teaching because they want any kind of accolades or awards or anything like that and I am used to having my kids in the spotlight, not myself," Thornton told Eyewitness News. "My goal as an educator was to help my students see their own potential inside of them."
Thornton used her theatre classes to teach life lessons that extended beyond the stage.
"I want them to leave my classroom feeling like they have the capacity to make a positive difference in the world, however they choose to do that," she said.
Conor Kruger, a 2024 Enloe graduate now studying acting at the University of Southern California, nominated Thornton for the award.
"She taught us so many great things," Kruger said. "I feel so prepared everywhere I go. Everything I'm doing with acting, everything I'm learning in school -- she prepared us so well and she is also just a great person."
Thornton's passion for musical theater began during her own time as a student in Wake County schools.
"I learned to be creative and I learned how to communicate well and be confident in my communication," she said, "and that really helped me become who I am today in a very significant way."
Over the years, many of her students used their experience at Enloe as a launching pad to careers in the arts. She is equally proud of her students who discovered other life changing attributes.
"They are able to see how they are powerful and they have innate creativity within them that allows them to problem solve and to bring something new to the world and to the communities that they join, the workforce that they join, their colleagues and their families and friends," Thornton said.
During her time at Enloe, Thornton received many other teaching awards. and last year, the governor honored her with the prestigious Order of the Long Leaf Pine award.