Annabel Brown

The winner of this year’s Mover & Shaker Award has been actively involved with Future Problem Solving even before the official program began in Virginia.

Although she primarily coached fourth grade students who were new to the process, some of her teams won bids to state bowls and state titles. She had an uncanny ability to inspire her students to believe that they could achieve great things if they were willing to work hard.

Annabel Brown was a hard worker herself, not only as a coach, but as a state evaluator. Eventually, she was nominated and selected as one of Virginia’s first International evaluators, judging booklets at numerous international conferences.

She was elected to the Future Problem Solving of Virginia Executive Board in 2003, and served without pause until last year. She coordinated Action-Based Problem Solving and helped manage every state bowl for the past seven years. To every task, she brought intelligence, wisdom, generosity, and humor, and she made everyone’s job easier.

We can never adequately thank Annabel Brown for her countless hours of labor, commitment to the program, and inspiration to us all.