NATCHEZ — Fallin Career and Technology Center’s digital media technology teacher Laveria Green was recently named the Mississippi Association of the Arts’ Digital Arts Teacher of the Year.

Green began the application process last April, she said, when she collected her students’ work and submitted it to MSAA.

The statewide organization hosted an awards ceremony last month, Green said, but she was unable to attend.

Instead, Mark LaFrancis — who works closely with Fallin Career and Technology Center — presented the award, a certificate, an art tablet and a special student drawing to her at a Natchez-Adams School District board meeting last month, she said.

“I don’t know how I got it, but I did,” Green said. “I was flattered, but all of the credit goes to my students. I was very pleased with the work they’ve done that was submitted with my application. I’m glad someone else recognizes the potential that they have. To be able to showcase my students’ talents was an honor to me.”

Green said she instructed her students with the “basics” of digital arts — graphic design, photography and video editing — and submitted all of those elements to the MSAA.

Green said she could not select a single student’s work over another, because she has great pride in them all.

“I’m proud of all of my students’ work, and I appreciate their effort,” Green said. “I give them the tools and allow them to create, and they always come through.”