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Tonganoxie Middle School’s Harrell named Kansas teacher of year

By Shawn Linenberger - | Jun 28, 2017

A Tonganoxie teacher has won a state award.

Kathy Harrell, a teacher at Tonganoxie Middle School, has been named the 2017 Kansas History Teacher of the Year, an award presented annually by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, the nation’s leading organization dedicated to K-12 American history education.

Inaugurated in 2004, the History Teacher of the Year Award highlights the crucial importance of history education by honoring exceptional American history teachers from elementary school through high school.

The award honors one K-12 teacher from each state, the District of Columbia, Department of Defense schools and U.S. Territories.

The National History Teacher of the Year will be selected from the pool of state winners in the fall.

Harrell earned her bachelor’s degree in history and government/secondary education from Sterling College in 1987 and her master’s in social studies teaching from Emporia State University in 1997.

She currently teaches eighth grade U.S. history and sponsors the TMS History Club, the purpose of which is to allow students to delve into an historical topic more deeply through reading about and then traveling to particular historical locations.

In addition to a $1,000 honorarium and an award ceremony in Kansas, the TMS library will receive a core archive of American history books and Gilder Lehrman educational materials.

Harrell will also receive an invitation to a 2018 Gilder Lehrman Teacher Seminar, a weeklong program that offers teachers daily discussions with eminent historians, visits to historic sites, and hands-on work with primary sources.

The National History Teacher of the Year award will be presented by Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Eric Foner at a ceremony in New York City on Nov. 8, 2017.

Past presenters at the ceremony include the Honorable Sandra Day O’Connor, Good Morning America’s Robin Roberts, First Lady Laura Bush, former U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Nominations for the 2018 History Teacher of the Year awards are now open.

Students, parents, colleagues, and supervisors may nominate K-12 teachers for the award by visiting gilderlehrman.org/nhtoy. The deadline for 2018 nominations is March 30, 2018.

Founded in 1994 by philanthropists Richard Gilder and Lewis E. Lehrman, the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History is the nation’s leading organization dedicated to K-12 American history education. The Institute’s mission is to promote the knowledge and understanding of American history through educational programs and resources. Drawing on the 65,000 documents in the Gilder Lehrman Collection and an extensive network of eminent historians, the Institute provides teachers, students and the general public with direct access to unique primary source materials. The Institute’s programs have been recognized by awards from the White House, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Organization of American Historians.