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N.D. (NewsDakota.com) – State Superintendent Kirsten Baesler announced Monday that Jamestown teacher Heather Tomlin-Rohr has been chosen as a finalist for the 2018 North Dakota Teacher of the Year Award.

Tomlin-Rohr teaches kindergarten at Louis L’Amour Elementary School in Jamestown. She is a native of Jamestown and alumna of the University of Jamestown, where she earned her bachelor’s degree in elementary education in the spring of 2002. She has been teaching at Louis L’Amour for 16 years.

Tomlin-Rohr thanked her staff for helping to push her and reach the success she has received.

Baesler visited the school Monday to inform Tomlin-Rohr that she had been selected as one of five finalist for the 2018 award.

“The superintendent is visiting each finalist in his or her classroom to call attention to their achievement and to celebrate teaching excellence in North Dakota’s public schools,” Baesler’s office reports. “Baesler and Governor Doug Burgum will honor the person chosen as Teacher of the Year on September 28th.”

Tomlin-Rohr said that as a child and young adult, her grandmother, who was herself a teacher, had influenced her to consider going into the profession. Her grandmother’s stories of her days in the classroom “was very much like listening to someone read an episode of Little House on the Prairie,” Tomlin-Rohr said.

Tomlin-Rohr called public education ““one of the most noble institutions in America” and said her philosophy of education was to focus on each student and help each one to realize his or her potential.

“Nearly every day I spend in the classroom, I find myself reaffirming the fact that every student I serve deserves the very best that I can offer,” she said.

Tomlin-Rohr was also a Teacher of the Year finalist in 2016. Robert Lech, Jamestown’s superintendent of schools, said Tomlin-Rohr is “respected across the district for her commitment to the profession.”

“Due to her commitment, each child in her classroom is loved and provided every opportunity to achieve at his or her maximum capacity,” Lech said.

The winner will be announced on September 28th.