Kohal voted region's top teacher
Northside Elementary teacher Betty Kohal is surrounded by her fourth-grade students, LPOSD officials and K102 radio personalities after being voted the region's top teacher. (Photo by CAROLINE LOBSINGER)
SANDPOINT — Gym packed with cheering students, pounding on the gym floor with the hands? Check.
Radio personalities Derik Walker and Jeff Mclean, co-hosts of the Morning Stampede on K102 in Spokane? Check.
The top teacher in the Inland Northwest? Check.
Betty Kohal, fourth-grade teacher at Northside Elementary School, could be excused for her confusion when she was called to the front of the school’s gymnasium Monday during a last-minute assembly.
“Does everyone here think you have great teachers,” asked Walker.
“YES!” screamed hundreds of elementary students.
“So do we,” Walker said. “That’s why we’re here.”
With that, the radio personalities told Kohal the reason they’d called her before the cheering students and staff — she was voted by the station’s listeners and visitors to its Web site as the Inland Northwest’s top teacher.
Finishing in second place was Carol Huey of Twin Lakes Elementary, in third place was Matt Dinning of Valley View Elementary in Bonners Ferry and in fourth place, was Kohal’s daughter, Jennifer Shelter, a seventh-year kindergarten teacher at Hope Elementary.
Also nominated were several other teachers at Northside Elementary as well as at Southside Elementary.
Walker and Mclean were doing prep work for their radio show when they noted it was National Elementary School Teacher Day. Bantering about it on the air, the pair wondered if anyone wanted to give a shout out to their favorite elementary teacher and proposed a “teacher of the year” contest.
At first, the pair took nominations on the air. A link was added to the station’s Web site where listeners could nominate and vote for their favorite elementary teacher.
As soon as the contest was proposed, the station’s phone lines lit up and rang non-stop through the entire show and there were a large number of hits on the Web site.
The teacher of the year award — which came with a gift certificate to Yoke’s, flowers from Nieman’s and a plaque — is a big honor, Kohal said.
She said she was touched that students, their parents and former students took the time to nominate her and think so much about her.
“This is a wonderful surprise,” she added.