‘The love you bring daily is essential’: WCEA honors local teacher with inaugural Janice Sanford Memorial Scholarship
M.K. French
Farmer Staff Writer
For fifty years, the North Dakota winter was no match for Janice Sanford’s silver Ford Mustang. With a set of trusty snow tires and her devotion to her students, Janice made the fifteen-mile trek from her home to the classroom in rain, ice, and sub-zero drifts to ensure that each child could read. Last week, that mission was officially passed to a new generation. The Watford City Education Association (WCEA) awarded the inaugural Janice Sanford Memorial Scholarship to Mary Ellen Sylvester-El-Dweek, a local literacy coach who demonstrates the same passion for teaching.
Janice Sanford’s legacy is written in the success of the thousands of students she taught to read and write. After earning her teaching diploma from Minot State University in 1964, she began her career in Arnegard. Even as she raised her three children, Brent, Beth, and Barry, her heart remained in the classroom. She spent her summers in Missoula, Montana, finishing her bachelor’s degree while picking cherries and hiking the mountains, always preparing for the next school year.
Janice was well-known for her twenty-five-year tenure at Johnson Corners Christian Academy (JCCA), where she specialized in the “steady patience” required for kindergarten and early elementary education. “She had a way with young children that brought the best out of them,” her son, Brent Sanford, remembers. “She was independent and had a sense of adventure. Both of her sons were in the car business at the time, and we finally had to talk her into a 4x4 SUV after she spun into a ditch one icy morning. But up until then, she was determined to get there in that Mustang.”
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