2026 MAAE Award Applications

[Kyle Gavin]

Good Morning MAAE Members, 

Please take some time in your busy schedules to nominate yourself or others to receive a MAAE award (Descriptions Below) at State Convention. Applications are due by Tuesday, March 31st (State Convention) @ Noon! Administrator of the year application are due March 24th so we can select a winner and give you enough time to invite them to State Convention. 

Frist year teachers- Rookie of the year applications will be posted after State Convention and are due at our MAAE Summer Update Conference.  

MAAE Awards Application 2026

Please let your MAAE Officer Team know if you have any questions.

- Kyle S., Trevor, Angela, Kyle G.

Outstanding Agricultural Education Teacher

• This program distinguishes NAAE members who are conducting the highest quality agricultural education programs. The award recognizes leadership in civic, community, agriculture/agribusiness and professional activities. Outstanding agricultural educators are innovators and catalysts for student success in agricultural education.
  

Outstanding Early Career Teacher

• The NAAE Outstanding Early Career Teacher Award program encourages young teachers to remain in the profession and to encourage and recognize participation in professional activities. NAAE members who are in their third, fourth, fifth, sixth, or seventh year of teaching at the time they apply are eligible for this award.
  

Outstanding Middle/Secondary Program

•  The Outstanding Middle/Secondary School Ag Ed Program Award promulgates that goal. Agricultural education programs in middle schools and secondary schools are eligible to participate in this recognition program.
  

Outstanding Postsecondary Agriculture Program

• The Outstanding Postsecondary Agriculture Program Award recognizes exemplary postsecondary institutions and full-time young farmer and adult ag ed programs. Qualifying young farmer and/or adult ag ed program staff must devote at least 50 percent of their teaching time to this level of instruction.
  
• Programs need to be current MAAE/NAAE members to qualify for regional/national competition.

Teacher Mentor

• Many state agricultural education associations have recognized the importance of positive relationships between beginning and experienced teachers by creating formal organizational structures to connect beginning and experienced teachers. This award program will provide additional incentives for experienced teachers to become mentors for beginning teachers, and it will provide beginning teachers a way to say thank you to the experienced teachers who have influenced them.
  

Outstanding Service Award

• NAAE will recognize current NAAE members, retired NAAE members, and organizations who have made significant contributions to agricultural education at the state, regional, and national levels with the Outstanding Service Award.
  

Lifetime Achievement Award

• NAAE will recognize retired NAAE members who have made significant contributions to agricultural education at the state, regional, and national levels with the Lifetime Achievement Award.
  

Administrator of the Year (Due March 24th)

• MAAE will recognize a school administrator who has gone above and beyond in support of the agricultural education program, FFA chapter, and agriculture teacher that they oversee.

"Teachers Turn the Key" Scholarship Application

•  As a means of encouraging young teachers to remain in the profession and to encourage and recognize participation in professional activities, NAAE offers the Teachers Turn the Key Scholarship. 
• NAAE members who are in their second, third or fourth year of teaching at the time they apply are eligible for this award. (When the awards are presented at the subsequent NAAE convention, the scholarship recipients will be in their third, fourth or fifth year of teaching.) Applicants must be a member of NAAE during the year of application (2025-2026) and be a member of NAAE at the time of the convention at which they receive the scholarship (2026-2027). All state winners must agree to attend the entire NAAE convention.

Ideas Unlimited Award

• The Ideas Unlimited contest is designed to give members an opportunity to exchange classroom and other teaching ideas.  The idea may be original or borrowed.  Each application should specify how the idea was used by the applicant and how the idea could help others in their teaching.