Social studies teacher Candace Fikis won the 3M Outstanding Economic Educator award from Econ Illinois and will be honored Oct. 27 at the Union League Club in Chicago.

Econ Illinois is a council for economic education that prepares students to understand economic concepts and skills needed in the market economy.

Fikis found out about the award when Econ Illinois and staff congratulated her at school.

“I was in the middle of teaching and Dr. Cheng walked into the classroom and he started talking. I thought he was going to tell my class a story and all of a sudden staff members and the people from Econ Illinois all walked in my classroom with flowers and balloons,” Fikis said.

Fikis will receive a plaque, cash award and specialized professional development. The school will also be presented with a cash award, to continue support of economic education.

Winning the award is an honor for Fikis.

“I feel very honored that other people in the education world have chosen me to get this award. It is very humbling because I am being nominated by peers, which is one of the best compliments I can get,” Fikis said.

The award will benefit the school as well.

“As for my career, it helps give me some money to use for economics education that will help us in the classroom and will also help my personal finance challenge teams, so I will get material to use in that. It gives me the chance to go to more conferences with people in economics, getting me more access to more resources and experts,” Fikis said.

Fikis received the award for her passion for economics.

“The big thing they are looking for is for people who want to further economic education so I worked a lot to try to expand the economics program. Next year we are going to offer AP microeconomics, before we had just AP macroeconomics and that class did not exist except until a couple of years ago. I feel that expanding the economics education is what a big part of that award is and I feel honored that they see that I have been expanding economics education,” Fikis said.