From the Holocaust to the hills and hollows of Appalachia.

When West Virginia University’s five newest inductees are inducted into the College of Human Resources and Education Hall of Fame this week they’ll bring with them experiences and insights that go well beyond the four walls of the classroom.

One survived the horrors of Hitler’s Third Reich in World War II to forge a new life as a teacher in America.

Another works to preserve the rich folk tales that are interwoven with the region’s fabric of life and family.

Two were teachers who never lost their classroom passion even as they moved on to successful careers as counselors and administrators.

And another shares her good fortune with the land-grant university of the state she loves.

This year’s inductees are Appalachian folklorist Judy Prozzillo Byers; counselor and professor emeritus Michael A. Caruso; teacher and textbook author Eddie C. Kennedy; Holocaust survivor and educator Edith Rechter Levy; and Mountain State benefactor Betty Schoenbaum. Byers will also receive HR&E’s Distinguished Alumnus Award for 2006.

WVU will welcome the newest class of inductees at a 3:30 p.m. ceremony on Friday, March 31, in the second-floor lobby of the Prete Building , the current home of the college as Allen Hall undergoes renovations.

We couldn’t be more impressed of our 2006 class,HR&E Dean Anne Nardi said.We’re proud to call themeducators’because that’s what they are, in the truest sense. They really do have worlds of experience and insights, and I know all that has stuck with the countless students they’ve all taught over the years.

Brief biographies of the inductees:

Judy Prozzillo Byers

Byers is an English teacher by training who has embraced the folk heritage of her native West Virginia .

That means she’s just as comfortable mapping the rhyme scheme of an Elizabethan sonnet as she is transcribing and researching the lyrics of the songs your great-great grandmother used to sing while working in the garden.

She’s the director of the West Virginia Folklife Center at Fairmont State University, and scholars and kitchen table-historians alike draw on her expertise of all things Appalachian.

Byers has taught in Marion County Schools and at Fairmont State , WVU , Davis&Elkins College and Salem College . She’s a 1969 secondary education graduate of Fairmont State and earned master’s and doctorate degrees from the College of HR&E in 1972 and 1982, respectively.

She has traveled extensively and has professionally observed classrooms in schools across Britain . She also co-authored the acclaimed folklore textbook,In the Mountain State: A West Virginia Humanities Council.

Michael A. Caruso

Classrooms and commitment were always the two main elements in Caruso’s successful career as an educator.

He made his name as a chemistry teacher and guidance counselor at Morgantown’s University High School before joining the College of HR&E in 1968.

Just as he did at UHS , Caruso quickly became a fixture at HR&E, the college he earned secondary education and counseling degrees from in 1956 and 1958.

He worked both as a certification officer in the college’s Office of Student Advising and Records and as an assistant professor in curriculum and instruction.

The college acknowledged his energy and commitment by making him the recipient of its first-ever Laddie Reed Bell Distinguished Service Award. He capped his career by earning the Sallie Mae Tribute Teacher Award four years before his retirement in 1996.

Eddie C. Kennedy

In 1931, Kennedy lit out for rural West Virginia and his first teaching job in Gilmer County . By the time he retired 45 years later, he had authored 14 textbooks and 90 television programs that focused on reading education.

He came to WVU from Glenville State College in 1953 to head elementary teaching programs in the College of HR&E, and also served as acting dean of the college in 1958.

Kennedy never let his teaching career get off-track. He returned his native Mountain State after his World War II military service with an accelerated mission to succeed. He took a bachelor’s in elementary and secondary education from Glenville State in 1947 and a master’s a year later in English and education from George Peabody College for Teachers (now Vanderbilt University ).

He earned his doctorate in education in 1951 from Indiana University .

WVU ’s 1965 Outstanding Teacher of the Year is also listed in Who’s Who in America.

Edith Rechter Levy

Levy’s parents and most of her family perished in the death camps of Hitler’s Third Reich, but she would liveto be an educator in America .

Today the survivor is working to keep the memory of Holocaust alive. In 1998, she was appointed by then-Gov. Cecil Underwood to head the West Virginia Commission on Holocaust, and she has authored several books, papers and articles on those dark days of history.

One of her books,The Holocaust in Perspective,is now used in West Virginia’s middle- and high schools.

The native Austrian earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in foreign languages in 1976 and 1980 from WVU and was awarded a doctorate in education administration in 1988 from the College of HR&E.

She has been an adjunct professor at WVU and Fairmont State . She’s an advisor on the West Virginia Education Council and president of the West Virginia Holocaust Education Foundation.

Betty Schoenbaum

Schoenbaum isn’t shy about sharing her wealth. But the benefactor draws the line on teachers. Specifically, ones who have to leave West Virginia for paychecks with a passing grade.

That’s why she and her husband, Alex, donated $500,000 to HR&E in 1989 through their Schoenbaum Family Foundation Inc., an altruistic endeavor designed to build up the quality of life in the Mountain State.

Money from the gift is doled out to deserving students in the form of a grant that has one geographic stipulation. The students receive full scholarship support for every year they commit to staying in West Virginia as teachers after they graduate.

Fifty students to date have taken the Schoenbaums up on their offer, drawing from the fund that’s grown to $1 million over the past 16 years.

Schoenbaum holds honorary degrees from the University of Charleston and Ohio State University , and earned the Women of Power Recognition from the National Council of Jewish women.