Seven-year veteran music teacher Kim Schaefer of Whitehorse High School on the Navajo Reservation in Montezuma Creek was named Utah's 2007 Teacher of the Year Friday.
Schaefer is the third San Juan School District teacher to win the award and is the first rural teacher to win the award since 1991. She was chosen over 24 other district teachers of the year.
"The best thing a person can do in life is finding something they enjoy and doing that," Schaefer said. "I have found that in teaching — it's hard work but it's fun, every day."
Schaefer, who speaks Navajo, was inspired to teach by her grandmother, who taught in a one-room schoolhouse in South Dakota.
In 1998 Schaefer started teaching at Whitehorse High, a community that she said has been recorded as one of the poorest economically in the United States. It has been described as comparable to a Third World country.
But she does all she can to make sure her students have access to the arts, writing and receiving grants to provide professional development for teachers to help integrate visual and language arts into the school's curriculum.
Moreover, she has volunteered nearly 500 hours teaching free music lessons and established an Instrument Scholarship Program in which students can receive their own musical instrument through a competitive process.
She was also awarded the Utah Music Educators Association 2004 Superior Accomplishment Award.
Currently she lives with her husband and children in a hogan on the reservation, another indication of how she prizes her students' culture.
In 2004 she ran a study that led to recommending that students teach the faculty about Navajo language, culture and history. Currently her band students are working on a piece that incorporates Native American music into Western concert band music.
Schaefer said one of her greatest accomplishments is growing the band program at the school and seeing student achievement and confidence levels rise.
Thomas Saunders of Clinton, a choir teacher at Rocky Mountain Junior High in West Haven, was named first runner-up and Kimberly Searle of West Jordan, a psychology teacher at Copper Hills High School, was named second runner-up.
Schaefer received $10,000 from the Utah State Office of Education. In past years the award was $1,000, but this year's extra money comes from a $25,000 chunk the Legislature set aside for boosting teacher morale.
The winning teacher also received a computer from PC Laptops, a classroom amplification system from Audio Enhancement, a monetary donation from McDonald's, Smart Board from SmarTech and software from the Smarter Kids Foundation.
Saunders received $5,000 from the state and Searle $3,000.
Schaefer will attend a conference with other state winners in Dallas in January and Space Camp in Alabama in July.
In April she will meet President Bush in the White House Rose Garden, where all state Teachers of the Year will be honored.
E-mail: terickson@desnews.com