Henry County educator named 2025 Kentucky Teacher of the Year

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WAVE) – State leaders recognized the winners of the Teacher Achievement Awards along with the 2025 Teacher of the Year Award, who turned out to be an educator right here in WAVE Country.

Jennifer Montgomery is an English teacher at Eminence Independent Middle School. Through her lessons on literature, she encourages students to learn more about empathy and to find their passions.

When asked what advice she’d give to future educators, Montgomery said it’s important to find a great role model to learn from.

”For future educators, I think it’s important to find teachers that are the types of teachers that you want to be, the types of teachers you see are having a great impact on students, that have positive relationships and just find ways to spend more time with those teachers to see how were they able to form those relationships with students because I think that that is where that starts,” Montgomery said. “Before we go out into our communities, we have to build classroom communities.”

Out of the 40,000 educators across Kentucky, only nine were chosen as winners for the Teacher Achievement Awards, yet Montgomery wasn’t the only WAVE Country teacher to receive honors.

Angela Hardin at Peace Academy, Jessica Talley with Mount Washington Middle, Jamie Brown from Marion County High, and Ibbie “Katy” Cecil at LaRue County High were also recognized.

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