Awards

Bicentennial Medal - 2019

About Mattie S. Miller

Mattie Miller received her degree from Tuskegee University, located in Tuskegee, Alabama.

Miller is retired from being the principle of Harper School, in the Evansville Vanderburgh School Corporation. Prior to her role as principal, Miller was a teacher of English and language arts. Her tenure at Harper was over four decades long, and when she began teaching, was the first teacher of color at the still-segregated school. Miller’s considerable experience as a teacher and administrator led the elementary school to name the school’s auditorium after her. Miller also directed the first federally funded “Right to Read” program at Glenwood and counseled students at Reitz High School. She has served as an adjunct professor at Ivy Tech Community College and the University of Evansville.

Miller has served as president of the Vanderburgh County Retired Educators chapter and served on the board of the Indiana State Teachers Association and the National Education Association. She is a member of CYPRESS, Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, and active at the Evansville African American Museum. She was named Principal of the Year by the Indiana Parent Teacher Association in 2001, and inducted into the Evansville Vanderburgh School Corporation’s Hall of Fame ten years later. Miller has received the Indiana Sagamore of the Wabash and the Leadership Evansville Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2019, Miller was awarded Indiana University’s Bicentennial Medal, in honor and recognition of her distinguished service and dedication to education.