Harris wins 2025 Linda S. Puntney Teacher Inspiration Award

Charla Harris of Pleasant Grove High School in Texarkana, Texas, is JEA’s 2025 Linda S. Puntney Teacher Inspiration Award recipient.
This award recognizes a teacher who, through the teaching and/or advising of journalism, inspired others to pursue journalism teaching as a career and who has made a positive difference in the teaching community. Harris will be formally recognized July 14-16 at the JEA Advisers Institute in Providence, Rhode Island.
Harris has advised all the publications at Pleasant Grove for nearly 40 years. She was recognized with a Medal of Merit in 2009, a CSPA Gold Key in 2012 and an NSPA Pioneer Award in 2016.
“Do you need a piece of chocolate?”
When students walk through Harris’s classroom door, the emotions of their day are evident — and considered. Harris reads her students’ faces before she reads their yearbook content. Rich in wisdom and experience, she offers a piece of chocolate to students needing a minute of solitude and counsel, said former student Shelby Akin.
“Her work as an educator is rich, layered and enduring — leaving a lasting impression on everyone she advises,” Akin said. “Just as chocolate can truly elevate a normal experience, Mrs. Harris has transformed her classroom into a space of inspiration, creativity and growth. Her literally thousands of students — now advisers, media professionals, business leaders and attorneys — are better communicators, thinkers, citizens and humans because of their years on PG [Pleasant Grove] media staffs.”
Akin later became yearbook adviser at Pleasant Grove’s feeder middle before transitioning to the role of district communications director.
“As a young adviser, I traveled to national yearbook conventions with the staff and Mrs. Harris as she mentored me,” Akin said. “I quickly realized what a celebrity adviser she was. I saw Mrs. Harris in her true element, and I learned of the underground journalism world that was quirky, creative and filled with high expectations.”
Harris’s impact was also evident when she was named the 2018 H.L. Hall Yearbook Adviser of the Year. Former Pleasant Grove principals from decades ago, alumni staffers from around the United States and several families with multiple generations of “Charla’s kids” gathered to celebrate her.
Known as “Queen Char Char” and “Momma Char Char” to former student and current Texas adviser Michaela James, Harris inspired her to pursue public relations as a career so she could use all the skills she learned and loved in high school. However, in the back of her mind, she thought “I want to be a Charla for someone else.” This led to a career change, and James began teaching.
“‘You’re one of Charla’s kids?!’ has been a common phrase I have heard when attending journalism conferences over the last four years,” James said. “Being one of Charla’s kids has given me immediate credibility to other journalism educators and a great way to make connections. Again, without her, I would not be where I am today.”
James said she works every day to create the same safe learning environment in her classroom that Harris did, which allowed her to feel comfortable as her authentic self.
“I am constantly thinking ‘What would Charla do?’ as I am approached with challenges,” James said. “Not only are all of ‘Charla’s kids’ better off because of knowing and working with Charla, but my kids are as well.”
Louisa Avery, MJE, JEA awards chair