A month ago, orchestra director Evan Farmer stayed after school for hours to organize the orchestra’s Winter Concert. For almost the entire past month, he stayed to help organize and direct the orchestra and band students performing in “Sweeney Todd.” Rarely are his days strictly 7 a.m. until 3 p.m. 

His hard work was recognized on Thursday morning when he was named campus Teacher of the Year. 

“He’s always trying to help so many organizations, not just orchestra and not just fine arts,” said his wife Amanda Farmer, who was a counselor at Kingwood Park before switching to Lake Houston Middle School last summer. “He’s always the last one here cleaning up after events and things like that, and I’m glad that everybody else sees all the hard work that we know he puts in all the time.”

Farmer is in his fourth year of teaching at Kingwood Park. He has been a Teacher of the Year finalist three of those four years. This was his first year winning the award. 

Finalists each year are chosen after students and staff members submit nominations. This year’s finalists included history teacher and coach Eric Coovert and English teachers Kimberly Villegas, Aimee Graff and Rebecca Sharpe. The ultimate winner comes down to a staff vote.

“It’s crazy,” Farmer said after winning the award. “It’s due to a lot of people that helped me along the way and have taught me how to be better.”

Farmer has also taught at Riverwood Middle School and Summer Creek High School in his 17 years of teaching. 

His orchestra students said his lessons have helped them both in and out of his classroom. 

“He’s really been the main reason I’ve been able to be motivated to do my work,” senior orchestra president Ian Ferguson said. “I’m pretty unmotivated to do my classwork. But through orchestra and building the discipline to practice, it has also helped me build the discipline to do my homework – and not just sleep all day in class.”

In addition to putting together orchestra concerts, Farmer has actively organized the music for the theater’s musicals each year. Outside of directing public performances, he has also arranged private concerts for staff members who are going through something in their personal lives. 

“I think there’s just so many different groups of people that know who he is,” Amanda Farmer said. “Then he always does a concert for a deserving staff member who’s maybe going through a hard time that is outside of school. I think that people know, like, his heart and what he really means to KPark and its culture.” 

When students were writing nominations for Teacher of the Year two weeks ago, Farmer was given the vote by many fine arts students. Senior Andrea Hernandez, who has been in orchestra for three years, knew Farmer would get her vote. 

“There’s this one time that really struck out to me,” Hernandez said. “Mr. Farmer had told us, ‘If you leave my classroom and the one thing that you remember was something I taught you, then I have failed as a teacher.’ He says teachers are supposed to inspire and move hearts.”

While Farmer’s teaching in orchestra has helped make the program successful, he said it is more than just teaching music that matters. And he is grateful he gets to do what he loves at Kingwood Park.

“We say it at every concert, every performance, and just to let everybody know that I love it here,” Farmer said. “I love them. I love working at KPark.”