By NEAL WAGNER / City Editor

Thompson High School business teacher Katie Mantel’s work in developing the school’s career and technical program has helped her earn the Alabaster-Pelham Rotary Club’s Teacher of the Month and the school’s Teacher of the Year awards.

During a Dec. 5 lunch, the Rotary Club named Mantel its Teacher of the Month for November, and made a donation to Mantel’s classroom.

“Katie wears a lot of hats for us, and she was voted Teacher of the Year by her colleagues,” THS Principal Dr. Daniel Steele said during the lunch. “She is always pleasant. She is so supportive and energetic and positive. I think her enthusiasm is contagious.

“I can’t say enough good stuff about her,” Steele added. “We are so proud of her.”

While Alabaster schools were still part of the Shelby County School System prior to July 2013, Mantel worked with teachers from across the county to help develop the system’s career-tech curriculum, Steele said.

Mantel said she works “with the best teachers in the world” at THS, and said she challenges her students every day to demonstrate how they have strengthened their character.