FREDERICKTOWN TEACHER EARNS RURAL STATE EDUCATION AWARD

FREDERICKTOWN -- Jennye Kauffman, an elementary teacher at the Fredericktown School District for the past 33 years, was recently named Outstanding Rural Elementary Teacher by the Missouri Association of Rural Education.

Kauffman received the award at the recent Missouri Assocation of Rural Education convention. She was nominated by two Fredericktown School District administrators Dr. Kelly Burlison, director of elementary education, and superintendent Dr. Jerry Kinder.

Kauffman was educated in a one-room school in a small town called Barren Hollow in Madison County. Her father was president of the school board most of that time, and the school's teacher boarded in her home every year except two.

She attended her first year of high school at Fredericktown and graduated from Ironton High School.

She enrolled at Southeast Missouri State College, but before the age of 18, she signed her first teaching contract.

Among her achievements, Kauffman, along with two other teachers, started a Head Start Summer Program for students who would be in her first grade class at the start of the next school term.