When she was younger, Gabbie Braun dreamed of creating beautiful smiles. 

While she’s gone on to do just that, at the time, she never would have realized how she would accomplish her goal. 

“I remember very vividly making a poster about a dentist. I had no interest in dentistry, really, but my family kind of grew up not in poverty, but always 'robbing Peter to pay Paul' is what my mom said. So my mom instilled in me and my two sisters that we had to be independent women that could provide for themselves and needed to have really good careers and needed to make really good money so that we would never be in a situation where we depended on any type of partner.

“So I was like, ‘Well, a dentist makes a lot of money. I was a very good student and got good grades.. And throughout high school, I was in all the AP classes. My freshman year, I was fourth in my class. And I was like, ‘Well, I'm getting really good grades. So I should be a doctor. I should be a lawyer.’ So I took Latin and all of those things.”

What Braun quickly came to realize, however, was that her true passion was art, and she should follow it. These days, she’s creating beautiful smiles not with toothbrushes or dental floss, but with paint brushes and modeling clay. And she’s not seeing those smiles when her patients sit in a dentist’s chair, but rather when her students walk into her art classroom at Troy Junior High School, ready to learn and immerse themselves in a world of creativity, imagination and possibilities. 

For all of her efforts as an art teacher at Troy Junior High School, the Troy Chamber of Commerce has named Braun as its Outstanding Educator of the Year for 2024. 

While appreciative of the award and thankful to Troy Junior High School Principal Jeff Greulich for nominating her for the honor, Braun said he goal as both an art teacher and the advisor for the Troy Junior High School student council (or STUCO, as it’s come to be known) remains the same as it has been since she started teaching. 

“I try to be very humble and I don't love awards and things like that, and I don't do it for that,” Braun said. “I spend hours and hours and hours and hours on art teacher and STUCO, and it's not because I'm trying to get an award. It's just because I want to really make the school the best place it can be for the students.”

It’s fitting that Braun is in a position to help students find their true calling, because when she was still a student, retired Troy High School art teacher Paula Benfer helped Braun find hers. 

Because Braun was taking a number of high-level courses at Troy High School in hopes of pursuing a career in the medical or legal fields, Braun didn’t have room on her schedule to take art classes. Benfer created an individualized art program for Braun. 

“So Mrs. Benfer was my saving grace,” Braun said. “I took a lot of her art classes. I begged her to take art classes. She made an independent art study for me. Now as a teacher on this side, I know what she gave up. She gave up planning time for me to have a class. So she completely crafted a class around me. And I was like, ‘Man, I really like this art thing.’ This is really awesome. I love teaching this. I like that I get to talk with my art teacher a lot. And she's like, ‘I think you'd be a really good art teacher.’ And the rest is history from there.”

After graduating from Troy High School in 2006, Braun attended Miami University, earning two degrees, a Bachelor of Fine Arts and a Bachelor of Science in Art Education. After graduating in December of 2010, Braun returned home to Troy and began as a long-term substitute teacher at Hook and Heywood elementary schools. In the fall of 2011, she was hired full-time to teach art at Kyle and Forest elementary schools. 

She would eventually move into her current position at Troy Junior High School, where she not only teaches art, but also is the advisor for Troy Junior High School’s student council. Working with student council, Braun has found another passion in her teaching career. 

“I really just like cultivating leaders,” Braun said. “Young leaders. I took over for Mrs. Clauser, who had done it for like 25 years, and who I was in student council with when I was in school. But I was quiet and I didn't know how to speak out with my ideas. So my goal is to help all those quiet kids. Something that I love to do with STUCO is we have discussion boards. Like right now, we have a discussion board for school dance themes, and Holiday Spirit Week. And the kids, including the quiet kids, write on these discussion boards. They comment with each other. So they have an online dialogue before we have an in-person discussion. It’s just so inclusive. It allows everybody to speak up, which I love, because I know I would not have spoken up ever.”

In addition to working directly with the students on student council, Braun said she likes that student council creates opportunities for all students to enjoy, such at spirit week theme days, Kona Ice reward days and pep rallies. 

“My passion is helping STUCO to create collective experiences for TJHS students,” she said. “These are such positive experiences that our students can look forward to and look back on as happy memories when they are older.”

And those are memories they can look back on with a smile.