Hometown Hero: Brian Link from East Chapel Hill High School
The award is the highest honor given to a CHCCS educator by the school district.
Link is a social studies teacher at East Chapel Hill, as well as the district’s Social Justice Academy director. An educator of nine years, he holds a Master of Education degree from UNC, as well as degrees from Northwestern University and Stanford University.
Kenneth Proulx, the principal for East Chapel Hill, said Link is an “amazing teacher.”
“I’ve been at East Chapel Hill High School for three years and have had many opportunities to formally and informally go into his classroom,” Proulx said. “You can count on every visit, student being actively engaged in high energy. He brings real life and social justice into the social studies curriculum who love to take his class. He built great relationships with the students that he teaches and with the families that he served.”
Hometown Hero: Kelly Drayton from the Town of Chapel Hill
This week’s Hometown Hero, presented by Hendrick Southpoint, is Kelly Drayton the emergency management coordinator for the Town of Chapel Hill.
During the pandemic, Drayton also took over as the manager for the emergency operation center within the town.
“She has led the charge for the emergency operation center that began with opening up the emergency operation center for COVID-19 back when we thought this was going to be a two to three week thing,” said Ran Northam, Chapel Hill’s communications manager. “Then as it continued to grow, she did a great job of leading us and preparing us.”
Hometown Hero: Lili Engelhardt
This week’s Hometown Hero, presented by Hendrick Southpoint, is Lili Engelhardt, who was instrumental in staging this year’s Touch a Truck event in Chapel Hill a very popular event put on by UNC Children’s Hospital and Troop 39 of the Boy Scouts of America.
The event showcases many vehicles from emergency, construction, and landscaping to military, transportation, and Mac trucks – and recognizes essential workers in the local area.
This year, Engelhardt was tasked with staging this beloved and popular Touch a Trunk event in a COVID-safe way. She turned it into a drive through completely reimagining the popular event in the midst of a pandemic.