Justin Pugh is a 4th grade teacher at Pine Grove Elementary. Both of his parents had full careers as teachers in Baltimore County. By watching his parents, he learned how to be a good person and how to be a good teacher. At age 19, Justin was given his first acoustic guitar as a Christmas gift and taught himself how to play. By the summer, Justin was performing at coffee houses, taverns, and college parties. But teaching was his true passion (it was also the degree that his parents had just paid 4 years of college for.)

Justin has often told his students that teaching is the greatest job in the world because it allows you to be so many things at once. In the classroom he has played the role of magician, acrobat, clown, rock star, stand up comedian, mad scientist, sports star, brother, father, and friend.

All of these things are to keep his students interested in coming to school and learning. He has written and played many songs on his guitar to help students with their learning. His goal as a teacher is to have students enjoy coming to school on a daily basis--something that is difficult to do in this day and age of X-Box and 24 hours a day cartoon channels.

In 2006 he was awarded the Baltimore County Chamber of Commerce's Teacher of the Year Award for his dedication to his job. In 2008, he was nominated for the Maryland Council of Teaching Mathematics Teacher of the Year Award. In 2010, he was awarded a Special Recognition Award by the PTA of Baltimore County.

In 2007 as a fundraiser, with the help of the Landry family at Blue Rock Productions and Kevin Hill of Studio Unknown, Justin recorded American Literate Volume 1.

By watching and learning from Kevin Hill's production skills, Justin self-recorded and produced the songs he had written over the years for his classes as rock versions and titled his CD, "Rock Music for Education" performing all instruments and vocals.

With the success of bringing in money for the Pine Grove Elementary PTA, Justin went on to record American Literate Volumes 2, 3, and 4 and started performing at schools, summer camps, daycare centers, birthday parties, girl scout troop parties, book festivals, and family fun nights. Fox 45 did a news segment on his music and teaching, and he landed on the cover of ActionLine magazine.

His music has been played on Sirius satellite radio, and his CD's have been sold all over the United States and other countries including Canada, Australia, and even South Africa.