A Columbia Falls High School teacher has been named the top home economics instructor in the state.

Mary Behrendt is the 2011 Montana Association of Family and Consumer Sciences Teacher of the Year. The award "recognizes exemplary family and consumer sciences teachers who exhibit a deep commitment to the profession and to the association," according to a press release from the group.

Behrendt, who is head of Columbia Falls' family and consumer sciences department, received the award last month in Billings at the annual Montana Association of Family and Consumer Sciences conference.

"It was totally unexpected," she said. "They started reading the description [of the award-winner], and I thought, ‘That kind of sounds like me.'"

Behrendt said she was nominated for the award by Jennifer Peabody, a family and consumer sciences teacher in Ekalaka. Both women are members of the American Association of Family and Consumer Sciences.

Behrendt said her interest in family and consumer sciences stems from her own high school home economics class. In the class, students taught grade school children about nutrition, which prompted Behrendt to pursue a career as a dietitian.

But that job required organic chemistry and microbiology classes in college, which Behrendt didn't care for.

"I was fascinated by the whole food part" of nutrition, she said. "I'd rather teach about it than [study] the technical side of it."

Behrendt had graduated from college and was working for a computer company when she decided to make her love of food and teaching a career. She went back to school to get a teaching certificate and got a job at Boulder High School in Colorado.

She taught there for two years before she was hired as a family and consumer sciences teacher at Columbia Falls High School in 1994.

Since then, she has taught child development and fabric and apparel classes. But her favorite courses always have centered around the kitchen.

"My specialty has always been food. My first love has always been food," she said.

Behrendt said she is fascinated by food's function as well as its aesthetic appeal. The body needs food to survive, but the food itself can be beautiful.

"I think of it as half science, half art," she said.

She credits her parents with starting her lifelong love affair with food. Her mother was Polish so the family's dietary staples included "different foods nobody ever ate," she said with a laugh.

Her palate developed further as Behrendt traveled to different parts of the world. Now her favorite dishes including "anything with a little bit of spice, a little bit of flair." She often cooks Indian and Thai dishes.

Behrendt often tries to introduce her students to those flavors.

"Some don't have the opportunity to try other foods," she said.

Her Kitchen Cuisine class includes a unit on foreign foods. Students research different countries' diets, and students vote on which countries' menus from which they will cook full meals.

A few countries, including Mexico, Italy and China, are off-limits. Those are countries whose foods students can readily sample, Behrendt said.

"We want to try different things," she said. "I tell them, ‘I'm going to be like your parent all year long. You have to take one bite.'"

Most students will at least taste the dishes, she added.

"I like having that exposure. I think it's really important for them," she said.

In addition to Kitchen Cuisine, Behrendt teaches LaCuisine, a class in which students operate their own miniature restaurants. She also teaches Life Skills, which covers "everything from food and nutrition to apartments, parenting and budgeting," she said.

With the state recognition, Behrendt is eligible to apply for the national Family and Consumer Sciences Teacher of the Year award. As part of the application process, she must write up a notebook and prepare a presentation about one of the units she teaches.

She's contemplating submitting a presentation on Kitchen Cuisine's foreign foods unit. In addition to giving her students exposure, the unit is something that could easily be replicated in other schools, something the national association looks for, she said.

"I see that as something that can be done" at schools across the country, Behrendt said.

Reporter Kristi Albertson may be reached at 758-4438 or at kalbertson@dailyinterlake.com.