Cynthia McKay - Teacher

Cynthia McKay was born in Idaho Falls and later moved to the Salt Lake area. She was the State Art Sterling Scholar when she graduated from Kearns High School. She attended Utah State University on a full scholarship and graduated Suma Cum Laude with an MA in French and a BFA with a Drawing/Painting emphasis. She was the first student at Utah State to complete a K-12 teaching certification in Art. Cynthia began her first year teaching Art at Brockbank Junior High and then came to Cyprus High School in 1989 where she has taught beginning and advanced courses in Drawing, Painting, Commercial Art, Design, Exploring Art, A.P. Art History and Film Studies. She studied Commercial Art through Parsons School of Design and School of Visual Arts in New York earning a Masters Degree in Studio Art through Marywood University in Scranton Pennsylvania. She was among the first to offer concurrent enrollment courses in Granite District and encourages students to take full advantage of the opportunity to earn college credit while in high school. Cynthia married Robert McKay who is a musician, freelance artist and instructor at Salt Lake Community College. They have one son, Robert (who loves math and science—not art) and a chinoodle puppy named T-Wrex.