Golden Apple Award: Ridgeland High School’s Peter Davis
ROSSVILLE, Ga. (WDEF) – The best teachers prepare their students for success after graduation. Peter Davis has been building solid futures for a long time at Ridgeland High School.
Karen Hughes is the principal at Ridgeland High.
She says, “Mr. Davis is an amazing teacher. Totally hands on. He teaches the skills that they need for employability and his AgMec class. As you can see, he’s right now teaching welding. He goes above and beyond to help out around the school, from building prom props to building frames for student artwork to be posted throughout the school.”
When asked to describe himself, Mr. Davis says, “I’ve been teaching AG for about 23 years now. I’m an FFA advisor here at Ridgeland High School. I’ve been teaching agricultural mechanics as one of my specialties for a long time. I love what I do. I enjoy it. I like spending time with the kids, like spending time working and helping them to grow and to glow.”
He continues, “Family’s great. My wife works for UTC, and I got a junior, which is the hardest person to teach in my entire life. And then I’ve got a 7th grader. He’s 7th grade this year. He’s getting involved in FFA. Both of them are involved in FFA, in competitions. And so that’s some of my favorite parts. Getting to be the dad and be the teacher.”
Caden Daniels is a junior at Ridgeland.
Daniels says, “We learn to be respectful. We learn new things that we need to learn to get a job and get a career and be able to make it in life. And he helps with that.”
Fellow junior Michael Johnston chips in, “He’s like a really big role model. I’ve had his class for a long time and it’s nothing boring. He always has something for us to do, even if it is something small and minor, but it always helps out.”
Mr. Davis explains, “Everyday teaching AG, we are completely different than the day before. Yesterday. We were grinding metal. We were having a good time in this particular class. Today we’re striking beads and running arcs and so we have a good time in anything that we do and just the difference of the day. I never get bored. My granddad inspired me. My granddad couldn’t read or write. He’d look at the pictures in the newspaper and he’d actually hold up the Bible and talk about the Bible. He was a great auditory learner, but he couldn’t read or write, and he kept going on, do something you love. Do something you love. Getting up for every day. And I love getting up doing this. So, he was my inspiration.”
