The sport of swimming first brought Kyle and Jamie Ruiz together in third grade. The 2004 Sterling graduates, who reconnected through swimming after college and eventually got married, are still giving back today as teachers and coaches.

Megan Grady, an eighth-grade social studies teacher at Sterling's Challand Middle School, uses competition and interactive curriculum to keep kids engaged in history.

Read our letters submitted by students and parents to Sauk Valley Media for our 2025 Thank You Teachers special edition

Dixon Public Schools’ newest addition, Thomas J. Dempsey Therapeutic Day School, is nearing what is sure to be a historic moment for the district - the end of its first school year. The school provides special-education services to students in kindergarten to 12th grade.

Dianna Brevitt is Sauk Valley Community College’s radiology program director, its Outstanding Faculty Award winner, and is being nominated for the 2025 Illinois Community College Trustees Association Outstanding Full-time Faculty Award.

Challand Middle School’s art program offers students a range of classes, from drawing to painting and printmaking to sculpture.

Amy Heffelfinger and Heidi Ripley, who run Rock Falls High School's Family and Consumer Sciences Department, are helping students learn practical life skills that go beyond the classroom.

Challand Middle School’s art program offers students a range of classes, from drawing to painting and printmaking to sculpture.

Dixon High School's choir and life skills classes joined forces early in the 2025 spring semester to create a new singing ensemble, Voices United, that includes students with disabilities who want to sing and perform.