Dare County Teacher Wins Award for Student Boat-Building STEM Program

Stevie Gallop learned boat building from her father. Now her seventh graders are doing it too, and Dare County Schools has recognized what that looks like when it works.

Gallop, a STEM teacher at Manteo Middle School, was named the district's Career and Technical Education Teacher of the Year, selected by her peers for a program that puts plywood and epoxy into the hands of twelve-year-olds, then puts the finished boats in the sound. The announcement came as a surprise on March 19 during the school's spirit week pajama day, a fittingly spirited entrance for a teacher whose classroom has produced at least two seaworthy vessels.

The boat-building curriculum is Gallop's own creation, built from the ground up for seventh grade STEM students. Her father, career boat builder Glenn Bradley, serves as the hands-on technical mentor, working alongside Career Development Coordinator Kelsey Oglesby to guide students through the full build sequence: lofting and cutting plywood parts, assembling with epoxy, sanding, finishing, and ultimately a controlled sea trial on the water. Shop safety, geometry, measurement, and seamanship basics are woven throughout, connecting classroom math to something that has to actually float.

The results have been concrete and public. The inaugural class built a 16-foot skiff they named "First Class," which was auctioned at the Dare County Boat Builders Tournament with a $10,000 starting bid, proceeds returning directly to the school to fund materials for the next cohort. A subsequent class built a skiff named "Miss Lea" using Bradley's tunnel design, completing the in-class construction before Bradley transported the hull to his professional shop for finishing steps that require tools the classroom cannot hold.

That community connection is a defining feature of the program. Local boatyards and maritime organizations have stepped in with material donations, mentorship, and demo days exposing students to adjacent trades: rigging, varnishing, and marine electrical basics. For a region already embedded in maritime culture, the program functions less like a school project and more like a first apprenticeship, introducing students to naval carpentry at the age when those interests can actually stick.

School administrators and program partners have pointed specifically to Gallop's insistence on real projects over theoretical instruction as what sets the curriculum apart. Students come away with confidence on power and hand tools, an understanding of build sequencing, and the particular credibility that comes from having launched something they made themselves. For anyone in the DIY boatbuilding community who has wondered whether youth programs can meaningfully feed the next generation of amateur builders and small-yard restorers, Gallop's program at Manteo Middle School is as direct an answer as you are likely to find.