SHELBY KERNS began her teaching career at Woodford County Middle School, where she was also a student, and never wants to leave. (Photo by Bob Vlach)
By Bob Vlach
Woodford Sun Staff
As a student in Woodford County Public Schools, Shelby Kerns remembers so many teachers who “poured into me,” starting in kindergarten at Huntertown Elementary School.
Her kindergarten teacher and her sister’s third grade teacher came to their house to cook meals for them on days when their mom couldn’t because of multiple sclerosis – either a doctor’s appointment or a trip to the hospital.
Fortunately, their mom is doing fine now, but Kerns says she will never forget those teachers going “above and beyond in that moment.”
“We have great teachers in Woodford County, and that just speaks to their dedication,” says Kerns.
By the time Kerns was in former Sun Sports Editor Mack Calvert’s seventh grade social studies class at Woodford County Middle School, a love of history was born in large part because “he was a fabulous teacher.”
Calvert was also “the first teacher to ever get me to raise my hand and wait my turn,” she says, because she couldn’t keep quiet and contain her enthusiasm for learning history.
Having classes with foreign exchange students at Woodford County High School gave Kerns an opportunity. Partnering up with those students, she says, “was my first instance of actually teaching somebody – and really enjoying it.”
By her senior year at WCHS, Kerns was helping freshmen in English teacher Kellie Griffie’s class while taking Chris Bott’s Principles of Teaching course. Griffie was a teacher who, like Calvert, continues to influence how she approaches teaching.
Kerns uses what she learned in Calvert’s class to help her students understand “when it’s your time to shine” in social studies and language arts – because she teaches both at WCMS.
“So much of understanding history,” says Kerns, “is reading comprehension. So reading and writing is foundational to understanding history.”
One of her students is not a strong reader, but because of his energy and enthusiasm for history, Kerns asks him to speak in front of his class. That is his time to shine.
“The thinking … what’s going on in between your ears is what matters – and that’s exactly what nobody else can see,” says Kerns, “so I have to teach you to be a better thinker.”
After earning degrees in social studies and language arts education at Eastern Kentucky University, Kerns began her teaching career at WCMS, spent a year at WCHS, returned to WCMS, and has never taught anywhere else because “I knew we had very good teachers here.”
The 2025-26 WCMS Teacher of the Year knew she didn’t want to go anywhere else because “I realized my personality is better suited for middle schoolers.”
She did her student teaching at WCMS under her current principal Rebecca Preston in English and Adam Swingle in social studies. They gave her the responsibility of doing the teaching, which led then-Principal Tracy Bruno to offer her a job, says Kerns, a 2014 graduate of Woodford County High School who became a National Board Certified Teacher in social studies last year.
Kerns now teaches in Charlie Kahn’s old classroom and still has his social studies teaching materials and whatever else he gave to her because “it’s good stuff.”
This is the fifth in a series of stories profiling the 2025-26 Teachers of the Year in Woodford County Public Schools.