TAHLEQUAH — Not just anyone feels the “call” to join the teaching profession, but Lisa Yahola is one of those who eventually got the message, loud and clear.

When she first went to college, she didn’t know what she wanted to do, but she didn’t consider teaching. Yet now, she’s the Tahlequah High School Teacher of the Year, and the District Teacher of the Year to boot.

“I like what I do. I like being in the classroom and the interaction with the kids, mentoring the kids,” Yahola said.

The Northeastern State University graduate is married to Marcus, and they have two children: daughter Mikal, 16, and son Aiden, 10. They are members of the Cherry Tree Indian Baptist Church in Stilwell, where the service is presented half in Cherokee and half in English.

Empowering students to be better people is part of her goal. Being an American Indian herself also helps encourage minority students.

“It helps minority students to see they don’t have to follow the stereotypes. They can be successful and they can excel,” Yahola said.

Female American Indian science teachers are very rare, Yahola said.

“Female native American students make up one percent of all the teachers in the nation,” she said. “Males are higher in representation in science and math, a little less than 3 percent.”

The Golden Rule – treating others how you want or would want your children to be treated – is another facet of her success with students and peers.

With her 12th year in the classroom starting next month, Yahola be teaching honors biology and zoology this fall. She’ll also be taking a turn as assistant cheer coach, helping friend and fellow science teacher Vickie Elliott.

In either aspect, her goal is the same: to make a difference in the lives of her students. And that’s a far cry from her original attitude.

“As a Christian and a believer, I prayed about it [what to major in] and felt led to be a teacher,” Yahola said. “I prayed, ‘Please, God, don’t make me teach; I’ll go to Africa, but please, not education. But I felt in my spirit that was my mission field. I knew immediately it was the right decision. I felt a peace.”

She taught in Sallisaw  her first year, and it was almost her last.

“The first year of teaching was hard,” she said. “But I finally realized it’s not me, it’s the system.”

Her friend heard about an opening in Tahlequah, so she applied. She’d done her intern teaching at Tahlequah Public Schools and was comfortable here.

Yahola has nothing but praise for her department and administration.

“We work together very well; we collaborate a lot, and I wouldn’t be successful without them,” she said.

She singled out two special teachers as examples from when she was growing up in Vian: seventh-grade home economics teacher Dee Ann Parks, and high school science teacher Cindy Quinton. Yahola later went to Parks for advice.

“She said to think about how you would want your kid’s teacher to treat your kid,” Yahola said. “She treated us like people not children – with respect – and expected to be treated the same way. She wasn’t condescending.”

Yahola follows suit, passing on her own values and ethics for students who don’t really have support systems at home.

“With kids, there’s a natural distrust of adults, part of adolescence,” she said. “By building a trust with that person, with an adult who won’t yell at or get them in trouble, they can be molded or pointed in the right direction.”

Quinton also played a special role: The shared love of learning bonded the two educators.

“Even when I was in high school, we shared that same love of learning and the same subject,  biological sciences,” Yahola said.

Field trips are opportunities for more than imparting scientific knowledge. In the fall, the zoology class has in the past been able to go to the Jenks Aquarium to see marine invertebrates, and in the spring, to the Tulsa Zoo to view vertebrate animals.

“I had a junior one year who said he’d never been to Muskogee because his family had never owned a vehicle that would go that far,” she said. “He’d never been out of the county, but he’d heard about Muskogee.”

Special needs kids also benefit from her other students who put on an interactive science exposition for them every year, with the kids going booth to booth.

“Edna McMillan started it; she’s a wonderful teacher,” Yahola said.