KINGSTON — The Kellogg School District celebrated its teachers and staff late last month at its annual All-Staff Picnic.

Held at French Gulch Farm and Garden, the event is the district’s end of the year awards ceremony, as well as a way to honor any of their retiring staff.

Each school and building had their own nominations for the awards, and then finalists from each facility were chosen for the teacher and staff of the year awards.

The individuals were nominated by their respective peers and then each facility voted on their list of nominees to determine who their finalist would be.

After that, the decision was made by a team of judges from beyond the district who chose the overall awardees.

The eight finalists included: Heidi Miller, (CES), Heather Goodner (KHS), Mark Lama (KHS), Jeff Stuart (KMS), Megan Bumgardner (KMS), Jaime Lewis (PES), John Mason (PES) and Cory North (Transportation/Maintenance/District Office/IT/SPED).

After reviewing the nominations, Jaime Lewis was selected as the Kellogg School District Teacher of the Year and Megan Bumgardner as the Certified Employee of the Year.

Lewis was humbled by the award and gave credit to the people she was surrounded by for her success.

“I would like to thank my coworkers, students and their families for helping make my job a bit easier,” Lewis said. “This has been one crazy year I'm sure we will all remember. I am beyond grateful to be awarded Teacher of the Year this year and could not have done it without you.”

This year there were seven members of the KSD who were retiring, including Cindy Burkgart, Sandy Harden, Melanie Jansen, Debra Mann, Darcy Furlin, Debbi Higbee and Nancy Larsen.

These seven ladies represented 162 total years of working in education, both in classified and certified positions.

Larsen, Kellogg’s retiring superintendent, was thankful for everyone who helped make the event such a fun evening, including GarrenTeed BBQ for catering the food, local teacher band Dad Bod for entertaining, and Paul and Carol Roberts who emceed the event.