About
But she never forgot.
After graduation from high school in El Paso, she headed for the ocean to pursue her dreams of being a marine biologist. But a love of children and education shaped her goals to include becoming a teacher and a coach. She graduated from Texas A&M University at Corpus Christi. She was working as a substitute teacher awaiting a permanent position and at the Corpus Christi YMCA when she was killed in 2006 at age 23 by a speeding driver who drove through a stop sign.
As a lover of music, art and all things natural, Dani left a legacy of caring and concern for others and the world around her. To keep this spirit alive, her family in the New Palestine/Indianapolis area has established the Dani Dreams Outdoor Education Center at Zion Lutheran School to foster an interest in science and discovery through projects designed to develop an appreciation, responsibility and concern for the natural world and God’s creatures.
Donna Griffin
Teacher/Director
Throughout a 34 year-career, I’ve developed my skills and talents through varied experiences – as an editor/reporter, small business owner, an educator in this state’s largest urban school district and in a Southwest border city, directing the merging of two weekly newspapers and guiding that publication into the digital era; developing and directing an elementary nature center, and most recently authoring a children’s picture book in October 2014 for a New York publisher. My diversity of experience – small business owner/inner city educator, author/volunteer director/ gives me the right balance and adaptability to be successful in this place, at this time. Yet interwoven in this diverse background is writing, the thread that creates the foundation for an individual with the right balance of drive, initiative, adaptability, management and communication skills who is an innovative and successful leader and collaborator in any number of situations.
Donna Griffin
President/CEO
My diversity of experience – as an author, small business owner, inner city educator and non-profit direc¬tor - gives my writing a reality and a voice that is innovative yet pays homage to tradition. Interwoven in this diverse background is writing, the thread that creates the foundation for an individual with the right balance of drive, initiative, adaptability, management and communi¬cation skills who is an innovative and successful leader and collaborator in any number of situa¬tions. I am a storyteller - as a writer, an editor and teacher for more than 30 years. Currently, I am Student Publications Adviser at Arsenal Technical High School in Indianapolis, Indiana. Previously I worked as editor and general manager of the Times-Post weekly newspaper in Pendleton, Indiana. I worked at newspapers in Central Indiana for 16 years before moving to El Paso, Texas where I taught high school journalism at Irvin High School for nearly 10 years. I also serve as founding director of Dani’s Dreams Outdoor Education Center in New Palestine, Indiana. I recently authored “The Twelve Days of Christmas in Indiana” with Sterling Publishing, NY, published in October 2014.
