First-grade teacher Bonnie Robb of Portland, Oregon, said …. Wow. And then a lot more.  When her name was announced as the recipient of a $25,000 Milken Educator Award, it looked as if she was too shaken to even come forward and accept her Award.  Then it looked as if she wasn’t even breathing. Thankfully, we were joined by a host of veteran Milken Educators to greet the audience and welcome Bonnie into the Milken Family.

On the walls of Solano Avenue Elementary School in Los Angeles, there hang a variety of plaques symbolizing the impressive honors that the school has won, particularly over the last several years: California Distinguished School, Title I Academic Achievement Award, and a trophy for the highest attendance rate in the nation's second largest school district, Los Angeles Unified.

Solano's halls are also filled with gifts from one of their most famous benefactors, the Los Angeles Dodgers:  autographed baseballs, framed photos and, quite notably, a computer lab filled with gleaming white iMacs, donated by the Dodgers in 2006.

Thursday morning, one of Solano's most exemplary teachers -- Shannon Garrison -- won another distinguished honor for the school.  And it came with another gift -- a $25,000 Milken Educator Award -- from another famous benefactor:  not the L.A. Dodgers, but the Milken Family Foundation and its chairman, Lowell Milken.

Some call it a garden. Students call it "the farm." But whatever it's called, the nature site at Colfax Avenue Elementary School -- home to flowers, vegetables and even some animals tended to by Colfax students and staff -- is most certainly a legacy, one that came about through the hard work of many but was the vision of one: an outstanding literacy coach and coordinator at Colfax named Dana Stephens.  And for this legacy, and the many other legacies she has left at Colfax -- including the most important of all: student learning -- Stephens was surprised with a $25,000 Milken Educator Award.

At a teacher staff meeting that third-grade teacher Marissa Ochoa once attended, Poway Unified School District Superintendent Donald A. Phillips said, "No matter what's going on in your life, this is the only year that that student is going to be in that classroom." Ochoa never forgot those words, and she recalled them this morning when she was surprised by Milken Family Foundation Chairman Lowell Milken with a $25,000 Milken Educator Award for her excellence as a teacher.

Milken Educators are known for their humility.  They don’t apply for the Award and they don’t plan for that moment when on any given school day, they will start the day calmly in front of their students and then one hour later, be facing a swarm of video cameras, news reporters and photographers as a recipient of a $25,000 Milken Educator Award.  Picture second-grade teacher Jennifer Svans of Kerr Elementary in Mesa, Arizona.