Annjo Lemons to Lead Excel by Five Community Initiative

FEB. 1, 2005 | Annjo Lemons of Madison, Miss., has joined the National Center for Rural Early Childhood Learning Initiatives as director of the center’s Excel by Five community planning initiative.

Excel by Five is a community-based education project focused on young children in four Mississippi communities. ChevronTexaco and the Phil Hardin Foundation of Meridian, Miss., are funding the project.

Lemons previously was director of early childhood programming in the Education Services Division of Mississippi Public Broadcasting. Prior to that, she was a parent education specialist with the Mississippi Forum on Children and Families and director of the Mississippi Literacy Foundation. As producer of Right from Birth, the popular early childhood development video series, she was nominated for a regional Emmy Award in 2001. The national honorary fraternity Epsilon Sigma Phi named Lemons the “State Friend of Extension” in 2003.

Lemons will work with community leaders in Cleveland, West Point, Petal, and Pascagoula to foster greater family involvement, health, and early intervention services for young children, with the goal of preparing the children for kindergarten. The communities will strive to earn Excel by Five certification in recognition of their family-friendly policies. If the project is effective during the pilot phase, the national center, known as Rural Early Childhood, may replicate it in rural communities in other states. More information about Rural Early Childhood is available at ruralec.msstate.edu.

“The program is designed to give communities and those responsible for early child care and education a structured set of achievable steps toward Excel by Five certification, regardless of the size of the community,” Cathy Grace, Ed.D., director of Rural Early Childhood and a professor at MSU, said.

Rural Early Childhood is a program of Mississippi State University with funding from the U.S. Department of Education.

  

Updated 03/19/2007