Mary Leykamp got a big surprise towards the end of first hour classes at Montgomery County High School on the morning of March 19.

The agriculture teacher and co-FFA chapter advisor was selected the Montgomery County R-II Teacher of the Year for 2024. She received a heavy, black plaque for her honor.

“There are a lot of really good teachers in this district,” Leykamp said. “There are teachers with a lot more years of experience and they’re ones that I really admire.”

Joining Leykamp as finalists for the R-II Teacher of the Year award were Kista River of Montgomery County Middle School, Amanda Beshears of Montgomery City Elementary and Jody Horner of Jonesburg Elementary. Leykamp was picked for the award for her strong contributions in the agricultural department and the FFA chapter.

“You get nominated by other staff members,” said Leykamp, who was also named MCHS Teacher of the Year. “Each month, they send out nominations. That way, if something happened that month, you can go ahead and nominate them. I’ve nominated other teachers before. Each building gets to choose one candidate and then, they will have an all-district one, too. It was quite the honor.”

Leykamp has been teaching at MCHS since 2013. She shares FFA advisor duties with Amanda Sullivan, who is also an ag teacher.

“She keeps me on task 100 percent,” Leykamp said. “Without her, this wouldn’t be work. It really is a good partnership. I kind of feel like this award is a little bit for both of us in our program. It’s a really big honor. We’re such a tag team. The kids kind of think of us as a unit together and that’s really kind of true. One day, she walked in and said, ‘Do you want to switch?’ So we swapped classrooms for an hour.”

When Leykamp was chosen as R-II Teacher of the Year, Sullivan had to keep it a secret.

“Amanda tricked me,” Leykamp said. “She told me that I needed to dress up because we were getting a picture taken for something that day. I’m normally in jeans and clothes that we had to get dirty in.”

Leykamp said during her tenure at MCHS, she has added more engaging activities to her classroom such as learning about insects.

“Our favorite phrase to hear is, ‘We didn’t get to do that when we took that class.’ We’re just constantly building and getting cooler ideas and more things to do for the students,” Leykamp said. “In my first year of teaching, I was definitely not doing all of the fun activities that I am now. I’ve gotten to do some awesome professional development. I’ve met a lot of good teachers along the way. Honestly, having our student teachers come in has really made a better teacher, too.”

Leykamp graduated from Centralia High School in 2006. She graduated with Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from the University of Missouri-Columbia in 2010 and 2014, respectively.

Leykamp worked as a teacher at Kirksville before being hired at MCHS 11 years ago. She said her parents were big influences in her teaching career. They were in attendance at the high school when Leykamp was presented with her R-II Teacher of the Year award.

“My mom actually wanted to be a teacher,” Leykamp said. “She went to school to be a teacher. Along the way, she got a job working for the telephone company. She stopped because education was always really important to her. My dad was actually a teacher at Wright City for a couple of years. He was a shop teacher at the industrial arts program for their middle school. He always had some really fun stories. Education was very important to both of my parents.”