Gerry Kohler, a 1973 graduate of West Virginia Wesleyan College, has been named West Virginia History Teacher of the Year by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History and Preserve America. She will receive a $1,000 honorarium and is among the finalists for the National History Teacher of the Year award, which will be announced this fall. VanDevender Junior High School’s library in Parkersburg will receive a core archive of history books and materials from the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History.

Kohler has been a history teacher for 27 years and has taught at VanDevender Junior High School in Parkersburg for nine years. For the past three summers, Kohler has returned to Wesleyan to participate in the American Heart Cadre I and II, a Teaching American History Grant funded through the Upshur County Schools. The history teachers have been "traveling through the footsteps of history," visiting historical places on the east coast, (cadre I). Cadre II is also a Teaching American History Grant focusing on reading biographies as a means to understand further the historical context. Teachers read a biography and have a telecommunication conference with the author to explore the author's writing.

Founded in 1994, the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History promotes the study and love of American history. Increasingly national and international in scope, the Institute targets audiences ranging from students to scholars to the general public. It creates history-centered schools and academic research centers, organizes seminars and enrichment programs for educators, partners with school districts to implement Teaching American History grants, produces print and electronic publications and traveling exhibitions, and sponsors lectures by eminent historians. The Institute also funds awards including the Lincoln, Frederick Douglass and George Washington Book Prizes and offers fellowships for scholars to work in history archives, including the Gilder Lehrman Collection. For more information, visit www.gilderlehrman.org

Preserve America is a White House initiative that encourages greater shared knowledge about the nation’s past and increased local participation in preserving the country’s cultural and natural heritage assets. For more information, visit www.preserveamerica.gov. Inaugurated in 2004, the History Teacher of the Year Award is designed to promote and celebrate the teaching of American history in classrooms across the United States. It honors one exceptional K-12 teacher of American history from each state and U.S. territory. The selection of the state winner is based upon several criteria, including: experience in teaching American history for at least three years; a deep career commitment to teaching American history; evidence of creativity and imagination in the classroom; and close attention to documents, artifacts, historic sites, and the other primary materials of history.