BELFAST — Belfast Area High School fine arts educator, Heidi O'Donnell, is the honored recipient of the 2017 Maine Art Education Association — Secondary Art Educator of the Year. The Maine Art Education Association is a statewide professional organization whose members are committed to excellence in visual arts education.

Inspired by her fifth-grade art teacher to pursue a career in arts education, Heidi enrolled at the University of Maine, Orono, earning a B.S. in Arts Education, a B.A. in Fine Arts, a minor in Art History, and later an M.Ed. in Environmental Arts Education. This latter degree helped her tremendously when building the home she lives in today. Heidi holds a K-12 certificate, is Nationally Board Certified, and has been teaching for twenty years.

In addition to teaching full time, Heidi is the sponsor of the Belfast chapter of the National Art Honor Society, helping facilitate an annual Family Art Night for locals as well as an annual Empty Bowls event supporting the Belfast Food Pantry. She has been the editor of fourteen yearbooks in four different school districts and is often seen snapping photos of students and events. She is currently serving as the Fine Arts Department Chair at Belfast Area High School.

At the state level, Heidi served as the president of the Maine Art Education Association (MAEA) for two years and is now actively serving as the Past-President. She is the Association's webmaster and is involved in a variety of committee work including communications and recognitions, as well as having served on a handful of special committees including the constitution and bylaw review, the national association's regional conference crew, and is the current promotional (swag) organizer.

At the national level, Heidi has twice represented MAEA, serving as Maine's delegate during the National Art Education Association (NAEA) Convention. When Heidi was president last summer the MAEA hosted the biannual NAEA Regional Team conference at Point Lookout, with over one-hundred representatives from thirteen different states.

In the community, Heidi is the co-leader of Camden's Girl Scout Troop 1341. Passing on her thirty-six years of Girl Scout knowledge to young girls, she guides them through a variety of adventures such as camping, horseback riding, and community involvement, all the while helping them develop leadership skills. Heidi also serves as a Webelo II den leader in Camden's Cub Scout Pack 200. Making knives from steel, helping the boys learn to start fires without matches, and honoring citizenship within the community, she says she looks forward to moving up with her den to the Boy Scout Troop 200 in June. Last fall she was appointed the Sailfish swim team parent leader at the Pen Bay YMCA and has truly enjoyed getting to know the ins and outs of the swimming world. Heidi was recently recognized as the Pen Bay YMCA Volunteer of the Year.

With an insatiable appetite for learning new things, Heidi has participated in Haystack Mountain School of Crafts workshop weekends for MAEA members for eight years taking classes such as PMC, knife-making, and soldering with Tim McCreight, felting with Jennifer Fields, and ceramics with Tim Christensen. She has also enjoyed classes locally at Maine Media Workshops and has had the pleasure of learning from Terry Abrams, Jay Maisel, Arno Rafael Minkkinen, and Laurence Gartel.

Heidi currently lives in Camden with her daughter, Taylor, and son, Matthew.