Sculpture teacer wins award for her jewelry

Wendy Echeverria
Staff Reporter
Every year, there’s an event little noticed by most high school students. The American Gem Trade Association, AGTA, holds a jewelry competition that consists of different categories such as: Day Wear, Men’s Wear, Evening Wear, Best of Show.
In these different categories, various jewelers enter one of their very own handmade pieces with high hopes of winning.
SBHS has one of those hopeful jewelers, Mrs. Rabe. The Sculpture/Jewelry instructor and jeweler. She is inspired and influenced by her husband, Gregory Morin who is also a jeweler and enters the competition every year; she has entered the competition once again.
Her last year’s entry was very successful for her. She entered a brooch that she made out of 18K yellow and white gold, garnet, diamond, and jasper.
She thought that she wasn’t going to win because of her use of the jasper which is a very ordinary stone. It took her approximately 50 hours to finish this piece. After entering she, like other jewelers, waited eagerly for news on whether or not she had won.
A month and a half later, around mid-October during one of her classes, she received a phone call from the AGTA judges to let her know that she had won First Place in the evening category. Her first reaction was, “I what?! I what?!” After that moment of awe she wanted to share her happiness with her students so the first thing she did was announce to the class that she had won.
“If students can see, from their teacher, the ability to succeed, then they can take something they really like and have great success in what they do. They can learn to believe in themselves, succeed, and do it well so they receive admiration as well as accomplishment.” she said.
Her reaction was definitely one of great surprise specially because she got her piece modeled and photographed to be on the cover of “INSTORE” magazine which is one of the main magazines of the AGTA.
This year she has entered a ring, using 18K white gold, diamond, amethyst, and an agate cabachon-the stone which lays on the top of the ring. She has waited what seems an endless month and to her great surprise she has once again received the phone call she had been waiting for.
On October 15, during her fourth period, she answered her phone and was told that she had won again this year. This year though, she won two awards, an Honorable Mention in the evening category and Best Use of Color. She shared that she was very happy and excited that she has been able to win twice in a row. “I feel relieved that I found out I won because that way I don’t have to tell my students I lost. But at the same time I feel welled up with happiness.” She has shared her happiness with her classes, I’d like to express it to the rest if the students and staff,” she said.