Excellent Educator: Academy For Sciences & Agriculture High School's Katie Crowley

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- She's been called farmer's daughter, Princess Kay of the Milky Way, and this morning she has a new title: Excellent Educator.

WCCO's Kim Johnson headed to Vadnais Heights to meet the teacher whose students call her something even more endearing.

Ms. Katie Crowley is very popular at The Academy for Sciences & Agriculture High School. The agriculture education teacher is all the adviser for FFA, or the school's student council.

"As I was growing up, my agriculture teacher was such an influence on me, and I remember the day he told me he thought I could do his job and that really stuck with me that somebody believed in me, that I could do what they did. And that made me want to teach," she said.

Crowley is the real deal. Once crowned Princess Kay of the Milky Way, she grew up on a dairy crop farm in Hugo.

"Hard work is really important on a farm -- waste not, want not. Our schools do a really god job to support kids but you kind of have to make the most of what you have, and growing up on a farm that was something we had to do there as well," Crowley said.

At times the farm has served as an extension of her classroom.

"Some of the students have gone out to my parent's farm and helped move rock and take down fence and do all sorts of things so they can get hands on experience of what running a farm is like," she said.

It's a student-teacher relationship that almost feels like family, even more so when you hear what they call her: "Mom."

"She acts like a mother in most ways. She's very supportive in whatever we're doing and always tries her best to bring out the best in us in whatever way she can," student Jed Fisher said.

Just last year, Crowley officially became a mother, but it hasn't changed how she feels about her first kids.

"These kids were the first to call me 'Mom.' It's just really different now. I have one of my own at home, but these kids are really my kids too," she said.

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