We’ve made a $250 donation to our Richmond Adopt-A-Classroom class to Richmond city teacher Alex Mustico at Carver Elementary in honor of this contest! This program was part of our recent Chevy Blogger Tour to Austin, Texas where four Richmond women raised
- Alex Mustico, our Carver Elementary teacher and recipient of our Adopt-a-Classroom efforts for this contest and our Chevy Blogger Tour
over $1500 for classrooms in the U.S.
- The 2012 Top Teacher Grand Prize Winner with the highest number of unique votes is: Sherry Nyquist
- We’d also like to congratulate these fantastic teachers who won second and third place, respectively: Kimberly Hardiman and Charlotte Hesse
The nominations of these great Richmond-area teachers and prizes they receive are below! Congratulations, your gifts will be sent within two weeks and we hope you enjoy them! To read all the nominations for the 2011 Top Teacher Contest please click here, and thank you for voting!
Sherry Nyquist
I didn’t think that teachers like Sherry Nyquist even existed anymore. As a teacher myself, I see many professionals in action each day, trying so hard to do their best and make their students succeed. Sherry does so effortlessly – it just comes naturally to her, it seems. Her students absolutely adore her. She teaches a kindergarten inclusive classroom in the most kind, gentle, patient manner. Sherry’s communication with parents is top-notch. She is in regular contact and no parent is ever left wondering what Sherry and her “friends” learn about each week. My only concern is that my son will now expect all of his future teachers to live up to Mrs. Nyquist’s standards!
Kimberly Hardiman
Mrs. Hardiman is a fabulous kindergarten teacher at Echo Lake Elementary. A teacher we all WISH we had! Mrs. Hardiman is never found without a smile and a kind word. Her positive attitude and encouraging spirit is truly contagious. This classroom is a special place to be. Songs, centers and circle time are intermixed with cheers! Mrs. Hardiman works very hard with each student to make sure that they achieve their potential. While reading skills are very important, self-confidence is one of her priorities! And in this day and age of test scores ruling, her children can brag of perfect scores and improvements – some of them by 40 points! While she is terrific with the kids, her communication with parents makes our job so much easier! And that great spirit doesn’t stop in the classroom, Mrs. Hardiman is that teacher you find playing on the playground with the children and always ready to toss a ball. She definitely deserves a cheer!
Charlotte Hesse
Charlottes Hesse spends time before and after school to make sure that all children are taught! Lessons are prepared and parents remain informed about the weekly curriculum. She has a great reputation throughout Hanover County and parents and children have the utmost respect for her. She participates in activities that her students enjoy in the evenings and on the weekends. I can’t say enough about how pleased the transition to Kindergarten has been.
- _________________
Thank you to our generous sponsors, the prizes for our winning teachers include:
Enough Richmond Rocks books for the entire classroom — valued at $388. 2nd and 3rd place winners receive 5 copies of the Richmond Rocks books valued at $65, because Richmond Teachers Rock!
A one hour massage and facial at Massage Envy valued at $166. Second and third place winners receive a massage valued at $78.
First, second and third place winners all receive a one year membership to KidsDineFree.net valued at $80 each.
Four free classes to Romp n’ Roll for each of the top three winners, valued at $80 each.
All winners receive a one year family membership to the Virginia Historical Society at $72 each.
An adult Sonicare for the grand-prize winning teacher from Atkins, Maestrello, Miller & Associates Pediatric Dentistry, P.C. valued at $70.
The grand prize winner receives a 1-year SuperNova membership worth $99 to the Science Museum of Virginia and 2nd and 3rd place winners receive 4-pack of tickets valued at $44.
Two tickets to Spirited Art for the winner worth $70 and one ticket each valued at $35 per ticket for 2nd and 3rd place winners.
First place winner receives a 4-pack of tickets to Seussical from Theatre IV worth $136.
Four hours of nanny services from College Nannies & Tutors for the winner at $70 (can be given to someone else as a gift if the winner does not need them).
A $25 gift certificate to CandyBouquet.com, owned locally by Crissy Egerton.
A $50 gift certificate to Mom’s Treehouse for the grand 
prize winner.
And, a Gift package including lots of fun schwag thanks to VA College Savings Plan.
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You may have read about our classroom visits in Richmond and Austin Texas, and about our visit to Tuscaloosa, Alabama, a city ravaged by a tornado in the spring of 2011. The students here were incredibly resilient, as were their teachers and parents we met along the way.
This news clip, aired there after we left, shares the story of our visit, and you can read more about Tuscaloosa stops on our Chevy Road Trip Challenge here.
Thanks to Dominion Chevrolet for sponsoring our trip.
Here’s a video with our friend Otie, explaining a little bit about how it works.
Click here to view the embedded video.
Otie "looking down" on us through the Volt Sunroof
Lines Starts Here & wait was only a few minutes!
Loving the inside of the Chevy Volt
This is just another way that Chevy is rocking at SXSW! Thank you to Dominion Auto Group for sponsoring our team!
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We spread a little love across the six states we covered in less than two days.
When we heard that past Chevy Road Trip Challenge Teams often showed random acts of kindness on their journeys to Austin we had to steal their idea–it was just too much fun not to wrap into the Richmond “brand” that we became on this trip.
Taking some cues from our friends like Patience Salgado we loaded up the Traverse with small items like iTunes and Starbucks gift cards, Team RVAEpicTales koozies, candy, t-shirts and other fun swag to share with complete strangers.
The best part about doing random acts of kindness is that it becomes so addictive, it begins to snowball and we just couldn’t get enough of it.
When we reached Shreveport, Louisiana late Wednesday night we ran into this nice guy who just cracked us up and showed him a little kindness. (He just happened to be a Chevy fan, swear we didn’t pay him to say all that!) Of course, we had to ask, What Drives You? He had a pretty phenomenal answer.
Click here to view the embedded video.
We also met cool people who were just workin’ hard trying to make a living, so we’d leave ’em an extra tip. One such person was our pedicab driver in Austin–it was raining hard our first day in Austin and we didn’t want to get soaked, so we packed in and she pedaled away:
Click here to view the embedded video.
After all, we were shown a ton of support before and during our trip from our Richmond family–from SMCRVA to great clients Green Monkey and Classic Catering who gave us munchies, Babystuff and Kids 2 who provided kindness t-shirts and of course Dominion Chevrolet who hosted a rocking send-off party. We’ll continue this trend until the last few moments here in Austin to let everyone know that Richmond is full of pretty kind people.
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I cannot tell you what little Texas town we were in when we bought these donuts, but these were the most amazing creations EVAH
After another four-hour night of sleep after crossing the
Texas, we promise not to mess with ya (too much)
Louisiana-Texas border we were singin’ “On The Road Again” by 7:00am, on our way to our final destination on our Chevy Road Trip Challenge.
Southern Maid donut lady, we love you.
After stopping in a tiny little Texas town, pulling into a drive-through that looked remarkably like a huge horizontal window was installed in someone’s residence we bought the most delectable dozen donuts our taste buds ever had the good fortune of tasting. As we were chatting with the cashier (our car magnets literally made us a magnet for conversation) the woman in the car behind us started yelling at us, so we bought her a dozen donuts, too.
We’re pretty confident angry-car-lady transformed into a nicer person the rest of the day because of this act of kindness, or at least her belly was happier.
We're lookin' forward to findin' out how weird this city really is
The rain could not get us down as we trekked the last 400 miles into Austin, which didn’t appear very weird (see classic Austin t-shirt on the left).
Laptops blazing, we tweeted with our Chevy Road Trip partners from the Traverse,
Monica had the fastest laptop. We were all jealous. Luckily, she shared with us.
following our OnStar map to see each of our teams converging on Austin.
Pulling in front of our final classroom stop at Blanton Elementary School we felt the exhaustion and adrenaline rush concurrently.
Our third-graders were fascinated with our trip details, the fact that we had driven 1505 miles in 44 hours (including stops of course), and that we were raising money for their classroom in addition to our Richmond and Tuscaloosa classes. Leaving the school, all four of us breathed a little collective sigh and realized that we actually had a few hours of free time until our Chevy welcome party.
just some of our "essentials"
We checked into the hotel with not one but TWO carts full of our luggage, laptops, iPads and power cords, confirming that being social media geeks is a lot easier with the help of a nice young bellhop.
Our team at the Chevy SXSW Welcome Party, tired but accomplished!
After a few hours of downtime we were picked up by Chevy Marketing folks in a sweet Tahoe and landed at Lanai in downtown Austin for a welcome party.
There, we met the other teams representing Salt Lake City, Nashville, Chicago, and three cities in Florida in the Orlando-area. It was amazing to finally connect with our brethren road-trippers and share war stories. It was fun to share that we knew of at least $1500 raised through our efforts for our three classrooms, and a little spooky to know that the Chevy execs had been following our blog posts, tweets, and Facebook entries closely (good thing we kept it clean lol).
Climbing under the sheets for the first full night of sleep in three days, thoughts of thankfulness, amazement and happiness filled me. How we were selected for this trip is beyond me, and even with the crazy amount of planning involved it was worth every single mile.
Thank you, Ted Linhart & The Dominion Auto Group for sponsoring our team. Ya’ll rock.
You can almost here us chanting: Roll Tide Roll!
Day Two of our Chevy SXSW Road Trip Challenge started in Knoxville (after four hours of school) and led us to Tuscaloosa, Alabama, a charming city known for Football (Roll Tide!)so we had to make stop at the University of Alabama.
We were excited to visit our second classroom of students, now temporarily housed in a magnet school housing three different schools. The classroom’s former school was flattened by a tornado last April
This school now houses three schools, one of which was flattened by a 2011 tornado.
27, 2011, here’s our own Kelly before we walked into the classroom.
Click here to view the embedded video.
Everyone we meet in Tuscaloosa was smilin’–I swear!–and welcoming as could be. One of our favorite finds was a sweet lady named Mrs. Mayfield. We asked her to give us a lil’ Tuscaloosa flavor and she glady obliged, with everything from football to race relations, all under a minute:
Click here to view the embedded video.
We headed into Ms. Thomas’ class with our U.S. maps, and shared our journey so far along with the miles that lay ahead, asking them to map out where they thought we’d be traveling. (We’ll have more on this visit in a bit from Kate Semp.)
After an awesome visit with the kids and leaving some treats behind for the classroom, we were famished and followed the advice of locals who said we ABSOLUTELY MUST dine at the world-famous (or at least in Alabama) Dreamland BBQ.
We had to snap this picture quickly, as it disappeared before our eyes. Thanks, Dreamland!
It did not disappoint. This was some of the most amazing, spicy on-the-bone barbeque we ever did have the pleasure of devouring, with sides of slaw and beans. Following were some interesting convos with fellow diners, all of whom sung praises about said BBQ, full bellies and smiles on their faces.
Then it was back on the road, an interview with Chris Dovi of Richmond Magazine sharing our adventures via our sweet OnStar Bluetooth and miles to go before we sleep. . .
We landed in Shreveport, Louisiana for a pit stop and met the sweetest man with whom we shared our mission and an act of kindness. It was one of the most touching conversations we had, and although our interaction was brief, his laughter and energy made a great impression on team RVAEpic Tales:
Click here to view the embedded video.
We crossed the Louisiana/Texas border around 11pm and kept on truckin’ until 1am, where we gladly donned our jammies and rested for a few hours before the last leg.
Thanks to Dominion Auto Group of Richmond for helping to sponsor our trip.
8:30 am: big hugs for kiddos, drop ’em off at school with reassurance they’ll be picked up early for the big send-off this afternoon. First tweet I saw of the day, @Richmond.com “#RVA‘s @Richmondmom Hitting the Road for SXSWwww2.richmond.com/news/2012/mar/… (follow @rvaepictales)”
9:15 am: Kelly Vance calls panicked, her laptop crashed, she’s practically in tears and says she can’t go on the trip without it. I calmly reassure her that she CAN AND WILL GO ON THE TRIP WE’VE PLANNED FOR WEEKS sweetie please take a chill-pill, get your laptop fixed and we’ll handle our Adopt-a-Classroom visit.
Our Richmond Adopt-a-Classroom Teacher Mr. Mustico with adorbs students, Kate Semp and Kate Hall
10:30 am: Arrive at Carver Elementary school with the adorbs Mr. Alex Mustico, our Richmond AAC Teacher and his equally-adorbs class of third-graders. Monica Horsley, Kate Semp and I ask them to route out our trip on the U.S. map to which one sweet little girl had us traveling by boat through the Gulf of Mexico. AWESOME IDEA I think and secretly plan our next blogging trip via yacht.
We told them about the students we’d visit in Tuscaloosa whose school was devasted by a tornado, and even though they’d listed new lights and a painted ceiling on the list of needed items for their classroom, most students said, “They need help more than we do!” These kids have heart and we’re thrilled to have gotten to hang with ’em.
11:45 am I am en route to my corporate job at Capital One to arrive just in time (or so I thought) for a meeting with my boss only to receive a call from her asking if I was coming in because our meeting was at 11:30?
I burn rubber to get into our offices in Goochland only to find an amazing cake waiting for me and realizing they’d planned a little send-off party that I missed having overstayed our classroom visit. DOH! At least they took a picture to prove that it happened!
How cute is this cake my team gave me? I hope we look this cool in the Traverse.
My awesome Capital One team.
4:00pm We are bowled over by the crowd that arrives to wish us well and that Richmond’s ABC affiliate, Channel 8, came to cover us. We have the honor of presenting our Richmond AAC Teacher Mr. Mustico with a check for what we’ve raised thus far and the clapping roars like thunder (okay I exaggerate but everyone was excited.)
There are cameras flashing everywhere, we feel like rock stars and consider puckering our lips and going on a binge diet until Monica says she’s tired of smiling and we need to roll.
Coolest part of our day: presenting our Richmond Adopt-a-Classroom with $1100 (and we expect this to grow)
4:30pm:We depart our party to the smiles of family and friends after giving our kiddos one last hug (the two of us that are moms, that is 
The Traverse makes it’s first stop in downtown
5:30pm:Richmond with Kelly’s laptop repair team, happy to be part of our journey and stops to take a picture with our sweet Kelly with her newly-repaired laptop, she breathes a sigh of
Thanks First & Main crew for fixing up Kelly's laptop!
relief and we’re REALLY off.
We've got the power. . .well, we did.
Trip Challenge Map, but they do find us, but aren’t able to tell us where the fuse box is. First-world problems.
Clark, we'd let you carry our luggage anytime. Like now. Really.
11:30pm:We fancy ourselves modern-day Griswolds and wonder why we didn’t put a car-carrier on top of our car and while talking to OnStar (and we think we’re on hold) we talk about Aunt Edna and how we’re glad we didn’t bring her. She was listening the whole time and busts out laughing, too.
Clark, you're our hero.
Thanks Dominion for sponsoring our team! Ted & Co–you’re a blast to work with.
Honk if you see the team!
Today started like most any day for these four Richmond women. But things were about to change quickly!
Kate Hall, Kate Semp, Monica Horsley, and Kelly Vance packed their bags into the back of their awesome Chevy Traverse as they started their SXSW journey to Austin, Texas today. The big send-off occurred at 4:00 p.m. today at Dominion Chevrolet in Short Pump, where dozens of fans, the media, and their families gathered to say good-bye. Their Traverse is provided by Dominion Auto Group and it is sure to make the journey fun and relaxing.
The Adopt-A-Classroom teacher, Alexander Mustico of Carver Elementary, was also on hand and he was presented with a $1,110+ check – the “+” because donations and funds are still coming in!
The foursome have lots of gift cards, gifts, and fun giveaways to use as they perform random acts of kindness along the way. We’ll follow their kindness through their blog posts, Twitter, Facebook, and any other form of social media they can conjure up.
And yes, they have Internet accessibility right in their Chevy Traverse so we won’t miss a minute of what’s happening!
RVAEpicTales team and Alexander Mustico.
Ted Linhart of Dominion Auto Group praised the four women for their upcoming adventure, “These women were chosen from across the United States and this is truly an honor. They were chosen for the work they do for the community and having them represent Dominion is truly an honor. They did not apply for, nor seek this recognition – they were chosen because of what they do!”
Cake for the big send off!
The four women enjoyed lots of well wishes and a fantastic send-off. TV 8 was filming as they packed the Chevy Traverse, and the fun continued with cake and lots of delicious treats for everyone. It was truly a festive occasion as everyone joined to celebrate this epic journey.
Dominion Auto Group made it even more fun by including a contest for a drawing to be held when the ladies reach Austin on Thursday evening at 8:00 p.m. EST. The lucky winner will have an opportunity to drive a brand new Chevrolet Traverse from Thursday – Sunday for a long, exciting weekend – no purchase necessary and no strings attached! All entrants are also automatically included in a drawing for a new vehicle to be given away during Dominion Auto Group’s upcoming grand opening celebration.
From L to R: Kate S., Kelly V., Monica H., and Kate H. cut the cake before heading out on their journey.
We’ll be watching these courageous, wild, and crazy Richmond moms as they traverse the country-side headed for Austin.
One thing is for sure – once they hit Austin, it will never be the same again!
Good luck RVAEpicTales team – we’re with you all the way!
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Kate Semp, Kate Hall, Kelly Vance, and Monica Horsley are Team RVAEpicTales
Check out RVAEpicTales on Facebook
This is the story of four little engines that learned about a great opportunity to drive from Richmond, VA in a Chevy while raising money for a great organization called Adopt-a-Classroom, landing (hopefully!) at a super-cool conference called SXSW.
Yeah, we're really doing this
They started immediately upon learning of this opportunity to work really hard planning their trip, using each of their unique skills and energy to climb the mountain of detail it takes to get 4 women in 1 Chevy across 1,417 miles in 2.5 days:
Kelly Vance: Our PR queen, having years of experience at plugging these sorts of amazing adventures, is the smallest of our team in stature but mighty when it comes to connections and planning. She’s ensured that folks far and wide know what we’re doing, and we’re we’ll be heading next. Kelly helped us craft our “story” and helped us shape our team video (forthcoming) with the help of the excellent BES film dudes. She’s also just adorable. We love that about her.
Kate Semp: My first-ever Richmondmom.com “employee” (and dear friend!) is our web-guru, ensuring all of our incredible sponsors are represented on the site and that our Adopt-a-Classroom widgets are working so we can garner great donations for teachers and their students nationwide. She also developed our kick-ass logo and lots of other stuff I’m probably forgetting right now. Most importantly, though, she’s our Chevy Traverse Queen-of-the-Wheel, planning intently where we’ll be driving, stopping, and knowing how efficiently she runs her household of seven, she’s probably got our potty breaks timed.
RVAEpicTales hit the road!
Monica making us look gooood with the help of Libbie & Winston
Monica Horsley: As the former owner of By Invitation Only in Richmond, Monica is the queen of swag, coordinating the amazing iPad and iPhone covers with our logos on ’em (oh yeah, we don’t mess around), koozies, t-shirts, and whatever other cool stuff she’s not telling us about with folks like Libbie & Winston.
She also worked our relationship with our Adopt-a-Classroom teachers, including Alexander Mustico in Richmond with whom we rocked our Wine Down Wednesday event last week raising $700 (and we’re not done yet!) We also love that Monica’s amazing mom happens to own Classic Catering, so she ensures our bellies are filled (which we totally dig, thanks mama!)
And then there’s me. I just sit around eating bon-bons, sometimes working with our amazing Chevy PR
This is Ted at Dominion Auto. He's into cars, pets and other fun stuff. And he supports our team, which is super-lucky for us.
team, our amazing sponsors like Dominion Auto Group (Ted Linhart is seriously as cool as he is on the commercials) and Real Life Studios. Doing so, I was able to watch it all take form in the shape of an EPIC TEAM who can move mountains in short order! I also worked with Ted at Dominion on our Chevy Road Trip Send-Off at 4pm TODAY, 3/6/12, join us! (Oh, and I also shopped for gift cards, candy, and other goodies we’ll be giving out along our route as part of our plan to continue the Random Acts of Kindness that our Chevy Road-trippers in years past have done.)
Thank you, Real Life Studios, for capturing Team RVAEpicTales in photos.
I love these ladies, and couldn’t have picked a better entourage for the journey of a lifetime.
I hope you’ll follow along, and we’ll do our best to make Richmond, VA proud.
]]>I was all ready. We were in our jammies. Snuggly. I had the map. The OnStar interactive route they can follow me on with the team while rolling while in our Chevy Traverse. The goodwill schpiel about Adopt-A-Classroom. Somewhere our trip to SXSW in Texas went all wrong and we ended up with Tasers. Oh, well.
This video in no way represents the parenting skills of anyone on the RVAEpicTales. At least that we’ll admit to.