We just wanted to take a moment to do a shout out for Melody Pedersen. Some of you may have heard that she was recently recognized at the Utah Early Childhood Association conference as the recipient of the Mary Olsen “Friend of Children” Award.
This award recognizes individuals who have made outstanding contributions to Utah’s early childhood community through his or her many years of service as an advocate for children and quality programming. This award specifically recognizes the contributions made by the recipient because of their vision for and public commitment to children. The recipient was to be a long standing educator of young children whose efforts have made Utah a better place for children to grow and learn.
Melody embodies all the qualities that the Mary Olsen Friend of Children Award sought to recognize. Over the years, I have seen Melody’s vision and public commitment to children grow and evolve as the needs of children evolved. Now that she is winding down her career and planning on retirement later this year, she will be greatly missed, her influence however will forever live on in this agency as she has diligently worked so hard at Early Learning Essentials for over 30 years to make sure we were delivering a high-quality program. She is so deserving of this recognition and more!
