The Christopher Columbus Fellowship Foundation, a Federal agency located in Auburn, in cooperation with the YWCA of Harrison County, West Virginia, are looking for nominations for a national teacher award.

Established nine years ago, the $10,000 Freida J. Riley Teacher Award honors an American teacher who works with a disability, teaches in a challenging educational environment or has performed a heroic act by making an exceptional, personal or physical sacrifice on behalf of students.

The award is dedicated to the memory of Freida J. Riley, a math, chemistry and physics teacher in a high school in West Virginia who spent most of her career affected by Hodgkin's disease. Riley, who taught in the 1950s and early 1960s, succumbed to the disease at the age of 31.

The impact she had on her students was captured in the film “October Sky,” based on the novel “Rocket Boys” written by her former student, novelist Homer Hickam.

Nomination forms and official rules and guidelines are available only at www.columbusfdn.org/freidajriley/default.asp.

All nomination materials must be received by the Foundation office, 110 Genesee St., Suite 390, Auburn, N.Y. 13021, no later than Monday, Feb. 4, 2008.