Whitefish history teacher named best in state teacher honored

The Daily Inter Lake

Whitefish High School history teacher Gary Carmichael is the Montana Professional Teaching Foundation's 2007 Montana Teacher of the Year.

The Helena-based foundation, operating under the umbrella of Montana Education Association/Montana Federation of Teachers, announced the honor on Friday.

As the state's teacher of the year, Carmichael will represent Montana at the National Teacher of the Year event.

Throughout the year, he will be a spokesman for the teaching profession.

Next spring, he will join other states' top teachers at a White House ceremony with President George Bush. He also will attend International Space Camp in Alabama in summer 2007.

Carmichael, a fourth-generation Montanan, has pursued his teaching and library career from the Hi-Line community of Saco to Great Falls to Whitefish.

Carmichael has been with Whitefish schools since August 1997, when he was hired as the Muldown Elementary librarian.

He since parlayed his love of history into a teaching position at the high school.

He has been a trainer and online resource for the Discovery Channel School, coaches youth basketball and designs the Web site for the Rocky Mountain Museum of Military History at Fort Missoula.

He also was the vice president of the Whitefish Education Association.

Kari Peiffer, a second-grade teacher at East Evergreen Elementary, was a finalist in this year's Teacher of the Year event. John W. Miller, an honors biology and environmental studies teacher at Billings West High School, was the other finalist.