The Dallas Morning News Texan of the Year 2020: Melinda Gates
Her work is helping beat COVID-19, eradicating preventable disease, fighting poverty and empowering women.
In the fall of 1980, a young teacher at Ursuline Academy named Susan Bauer attended a math instruction conference in Austin to pick up some new ideas to bring home to Dallas to improve her classes.
It was the sort of thing she did regularly, Bauer being the kind of teacher who wanted to learn exciting, new things to get her students excited too. During this particular conference, one session especially piqued her interest. It focused on the personal computer and how it could be used to enhance math education. Specifically, she learned about the Apple II+ a beige and brown typewriter looking thing with a glowing green monitor and boxy disk-drive set on top.