Lisa-Anne L. Tsuruda is living her dream as an educator who inspires students to become teachers, too, and then helps them achieve their college goals.

When the Mililani High School language arts teacher won a $25,000 Milken Educator Award last fall, she set aside more than half of the money to fund the Lisa-Anne L. Tsuruda Legacy Scholarship for Future Educators. This month she wrote a $500 check to the inaugural recipient.

Tsuruda, 42, combines an upbeat personality with the intense drive and high standards that motivate students to do their best, as the Milken Family Foundation (http://www.mff.org) concluded in honoring her as among the best teachers in the United States.

The University of Hawaii alumna (bachelor's degree in English and a professional diploma in secondary education) has taught for 17 years, 12 at Waianae High School and five at Mililani.

Her husband, Derrick Tsuruda, is a vice principal at Kapolei Middle School. Their free time revolves around their respective schools and the lives of their busy young sons, Ethan, 10, and Ryan, 6.

She's also active in Delta Kappa Gamma, the professional society of women educators, saying that “;when you're a teacher, you can never stop learning.”;

QUESTION: Let's start with your scholarship. Why did you decide to use the Milken money in that way?

ANSWER: In 1986, I was a recipient of the Cec Heftel scholarship, if you remember Congressman Cec Heftel. ... People tried for it, and they were going to go doctor, lawyer, whatever, and I was going to be a teacher. And I thought it was so wonderful that he supported me that way. So for my entire adult life I have always wanted to do a scholarship so that I could do that for somebody else.

Q: That's great. How much money are you contributing?

A: What I'm doing is helping a Mililani senior who wants to be a teacher — one for the next 20 years. Each of them wins $500, so $10,000 total.

Q: Who's your first recipient?

A: My first recipient is Victoria Delos Santos.

Q: Why did you choose her?

A: First let me tell explain how we're doing it. I want to make it very, very fair, so I have a committee. The applicants send their resume, they have their transcripts, their financial need as a family, and then each of them has to write two essays. I have four different questions and it's up to them which two they choose. One was, “;Tell your story — why do you want to become a teacher?”; Another one was, “;What is a problem that teachers are facing today?”; Another was, “;What is the most important trait that a teacher must have?”; And the fourth was, “;Tell me about a project or about an assignment that really sparked your interest.”; So for Victoria, one of the two essays she wrote was about a problem teachers are facing, and she wrote about furloughs. ... In her voice when she wrote was the passion that she feels, and to be a teacher today you have to have the passion.

Q: I'd like to ask you to answer those same four questions that you posed to your scholarship applicants. But first, getting back to the Milken Award, how do you plan to spend the rest of it?

A: Out of the $25,000, $8,000 goes to taxes automatically. So I got $17,000, and of that, $10,000 is going to my scholarship and $7,000 is going to pay for my children's education.

Q: Where do they go to school?

A: My 10-year-old son goes to Hawaii Baptist Academy and my 6-year-old (son) goes to 'Iolani School.

Q: Why did you choose private school for them?

A: What it is for me is that I went to private school. My big spiel is this: I am a product of the private school system, which is a combination of internal drive and external drive. ... What I want to do is to bring that private school mentality into my classroom, and I want to give my students a private school education even though they are in a public school. I give them very high standards, and the drive, and everything else I can to help them succeed.

Q: Where did you go to high school?

A: Sacred Hearts Academy.

Q: Were born here in Hawaii?

A: Oh, yea, I'm a local girl. I'm from Waipahu. I went to St. Joseph's and then I went to Sacred Hearts Academy. The thing is, it's all tied together, because at Sacred Hearts Academy our motto is “;helping young ladies to make a difference.”; We live that every single day. So my whole philosophy of teaching, or my whole belief system, is: What is your legacy? What are you doing today to help the most amount of people and to make an impact on people's lives? I honestly believe that being a teacher is it for me.

Q: Now, I want to get back to your four essay questions, if you could address each of those briefly. Starting with the first one: What is your story, why did you want to become a teacher?

A: That's all I've ever wanted to be, from the age of 5. I would have school with my neighborhood friends under my father's mango tree, with the stuffed animals, with the lesson plans, and tests, and stars, and all that kind of stuff. ... Then when I was a freshman in high school at Sacred Hearts Academy, I met the most inspirational teacher of my life, who was Mrs. Margaret Helen Wood. She was my English teacher ninth grade and 12th grade. British lit — which is my specialty area: Jane Austen, Charles Dickens. She is the epitome to me of what an English teacher is. And I have a picture with she and I, right here, above my desk, and I look at it every single day. And we are still in contact today.

Q: Wow. So the next question: the most important trait for a teacher?

A: Period, hands down, it's that you have to have a passion. A passion for what you are teaching, and kids. If you don't love kids, you're in the wrong profession. The content is secondary to the art of teaching, to be able to build a rapport with kids and to make a difference with them.

Q: How about a problem facing teachers today?

A: The obvious one is furloughs, but I'm looking at it in a bigger scope. I would say the public's perception of teachers. ... People have a false sense or belief system, No. 1, that people who “;do”; have a job and that people who “;can't do”; teach. And that is so false. They need to understand that all professions depend on teaching. Without the profession of teaching, working with kids, helping kids find their voice and their skills, nothing else in our society can work.

Q: And the last question that you presented, about a project that had an impact on your life?

A: One of the big things for me now is the Senior Project (an intensive project required for Hawaii 12th-graders in order to earn special recognition upon graduation; Tsuruda piloted the program for the state Department of Education). If you have a kid who enters it with open eyes and an open heart, it changes lives. Victoria is a great example. (Delos Santos' Senior Project on reef conservation brought her to Waikele Elementary School, where she shared what she had learned with a second-grade class.) From that experience she knew that she wanted to become a teacher. The Senior Project, if it's done correctly, and the kids really put themselves into it, can have a major impact on the rest of their lives.