By Lindsay Tice,Staff Writer

LEWISTON – As a kindergarten teacher, Donna Tardif doesn’t usually get a lot of accolades.

On Thursday, she received three standing ovations.

Top school officials called her work inspirational. News media showered her with attention.

And a former student – 6-year-old Kent Mayerson – ran onstage in the middle of a ceremony to give her a hug.

Tardif had just learned that she was named 2006 Maine Teacher of the Year.

“This is such an extreme honor,” she said as tears pooled in her eyes.

Tardif, 36, has worked as a teacher for 13 years. It was the career she’d dreamed of since her own days in kindergarten, when she played school with her brother and sisters and her dolls.

She later graduated from the University of Maine at Farmington with a bachelor’s degree in education. She also earned a master’s degree from Virginia Commonwealth University.

She has spent four years at Montello Elementary School, Lewiston’s largest elementary, teaching kindergarten, first and second grades. She mentored other teachers and helped establish reading and writing programs.

In the classroom she quickly became known for her enthusiasm, her soft voice and her encouraging words. She offered incentives – an extra recess, candy, a small party – for good behavior and work done on time. To students, she always seemed focused on their good traits, not the bad.

Said Kent, who ran through the assembly to give Tardif a hug, “She was such a nice teacher.”

Emily Craft, now 10, had Tardif in first grade. She and her classmates learned so much that their parents tried to persuade the school to let Tardif teach the same kids for second grade.

“She just turned Emily on to learning,” Kelly Craft said. “She lit the fire.”

Although Emily now goes to Pettingill Elementary School, mother and daughter sat in the audience Thursday as Montello students and teachers gathered for the Teacher of the Year award ceremony. Most of the students and teachers – including Tardif – thought they were there to celebrate the school’s innovative literacy programs.

Tardif figured the assembly was about more than literacy when she saw the State Board of Education chairman, a past Teacher of the Year winner and other education leaders troop through Montello’s gym-turned-assembly hall.

Tardif had applied for Teacher of the Year months ago, and every one of the officials had been involved in her interviews.

“I kind of had a feeling something else was going on,” she said. “I hoped, but I didn’t dare hope. I was afraid I would jinx it.”

She was sitting with her kindergartners, patting the back of one little boy, when Education Commissioner Susan Gendron announced she was really there because “one of your teachers is going to receive the biggest award in the state of Maine.” Tardif stifled a smile.

Called on stage, she began to cry.

“Even during my wedding, I didn’t cry,” she said afterward. “I’m in shock.”

As Maine’s 2006 Teacher of the Year, Tardif will travel around the state to speak with other educators. She will travel to Washington to meet the president, to Texas to meet other Teacher of the Year state winners, and to Space Camp in Alabama to meet Teacher of the Year winners from around the world.

She will also compete for national Teacher of the Year.

But after the ceremony, Tardif didn’t focus on any of that.

She thought about her kindergartners.

“Now I go back to my classroom,” she said. “I can’t wait to see my students.”