Meet Jeff Cherry
51 years old
Married to Lorrie Cherry (29 years)
Daughter: Courtney (24) Son in-law: Chris
Son: Corbin (21)
Graduate of Indiana State University
Moved to Texas in 1981
29th year as a high school teacher
Active member of World Affairs Council of Houston
Jeff Cherry has spent his entire life in the public as a teacher and coach. The last 16 of his 28 years in education he has spent at Clear Creek High School in League City. Currently he is serving as the Social Studies Department Chairman and teaching AP Human Geography, Pre-AP World Geography and serving as the Academic Decathlon coach. Jeff also has taught Government, U.S. and World History, and started the school districts only Global Politics program.
He has won numerous awards in education including being included multiple times in the Who’s Who Among America’s Teachers and he has received the Joseph P. Whitehead Excellence in Education Award awarded to only 250 teachers nationwide annually from the Coca-Cola Foundation. He was also recognized as the Houston International Educator of the Year in 2005 as awarded by the World Affairs Council of Houston, and the Clear Creek ISD Space Center Rotary Excellence in Education Award in 2005. He is sought out as a presenter at various social studies conferences including the Texas Council on Social Studies, Friends of Geography, and at the National Council of Social Studies national conference. He is a geography consultant for the Texas Alliance for Geographic Education. Education is the absolutely essential core of his platform in which he believes all children deserve a world class education.
Jeff’s upbringing provided the foundation for what he believes is the focus of a fulfilled life; service to others. Growing up in a small rural community “gave me a sense of how important family, church, and community are to the foundation of America". Jeff’s family was a quintessential middle American family. His grandfather on his dad’s side fought in WWI serving on the U.S.S. Texas and retired from both the railroad and General Motors, while his mom’s dad raised 15 kids on 60 acres as a farmer and never owned his own home. “Both of my grandparent’s houses were full of love, laughing, and great food that my grandmothers cooked". Jeff’s father started his own carpet and floor business and instilled a respect for hard work. Jeff became the first in his entire extended family to gain a college education when he graduated from Indiana State University in 1981.
Over the past 11 years he has traveled to over twenty countries including China, India, Russia, and Israel. Most of these trips have come as an active member of the World Affairs Council of Houston where he has met with many U.S. and world leaders including former Secretaries of State James Baker, Colin Powell, Madeleine Albright, and former Nobel Prize winner and President of Poland Lech Walesa. Jeff has also lead educational trips for students to Europe multiple times. Jeff traveled to Alberta, Canada last summer to find out how more about the oil sands and the partnership between the provincial government and business can be a winning combination. A focus of Jeff Cherry’s campaign is a greater understanding of the world we live in and our place in it.
“I absolutely believe that my many experiences have prepared me for the challenge of representing and fighting for the citizens of the 14th Congressional District.”
Jeff and his wife, Lorrie, who works as a special education paraprofessional; live, work, and worship in League City. Their daughter Courtney is 2007 graduate of Lehigh University and recently finished the highly acclaimed Teach for America program and is currently attending law school at the University of Houston. She is married to Christopher Hause a graduate of Lehigh who works as an industrial engineer. Courtney and Chris live in Houston. The Cherry’s son Corbin is currently attending college with hopes of entering the medical field as a surgical technician.
Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare. ~Japanese proverb
Jeff and his wife Lorrie of 29 years
